duces in those whose miserable fortune it is to be entrusted with it. That the machine and all its tackling was out of repair they knew, crazy and creaking, the joints loose, the iron-work rusty, the timber decayed, the harness rotten: break down and overturn it must; their only solicitude was to keep it in the old ruts till the end of their stage; if it held together till they gave up the reins, what happened afterwards would be no concern of theirs. But here lay the hopelessness of the case, that no change of government could change the character of those who, under any government, would be employed. If one set of men were displaced, it would only be to make room for another,-bred in the same corruption, trained in the same school, whose sense of honour was of the same touch, whose morals were at the same standard of alloy. It would be but the fable of the fox and the flies. The nation, however, was ready for any change; and the only measure which could have averted a disastrous one would have been for the king to have returned, and supported some vigorous and upright minister in carrying into effect a system of thorough constitutional reform: new foundations were not wanting,-so deeply and so well had the old been laid. But the king, weak by nature, irresolute by habit, and timid from an ever-present sense of his own infirmities, was placed in circumstances which might have perplexed a stronger mind. While he was beset by evil counsellors in one country, and represented by a miserable regency in the other, abuses were continued in both, which, slow as they had hitherto been in producing it, were now rapidly bringing on a revolutionary crisis. The attempt at revolution was made in Pernambuco, prematurely, to the destruction of those engaged in it, and to the misfortune of Brazil; for, among those who perished in this guilty and rash undertaking, were men who, if they had waited for the course of events, might, at this day, have been a blessing and an honour to their country. If the king had doubted it before, this event must have convinced him that nothing but the presence of the court in Brazil could preserve that country from a revolution, the immediate effect of which would be to break it into a number of anarchical commonwealths, and the probable end-such tragedies, in all the most flourishing parts, as that of St. Domingo. But it had now become as impossible to keep Portugal in dependence upon a distant king in Brazil, as to reduce Brazil again to a state of dependence upon Portugal; and while Marshal Beresford was at the Rio, representing to the king the real condition of his European dominions, the state of his army, and the necessity of applying some speedy remedy to the existing evils, advantage was taken of his absence to effect one of those military revolutions, which were then the influenza of the times. The history of that revolution

should

should be read in the very satisfactory and authentic sketch of it by Captain Murray Browne. The commanding officer of a regiment in Porto had made rather too free with the contents of the regimental chest entrusted to his care; and he knew that a commissioner would soon arrive to examine his accounts. This was by no means desirable, and to avert his impending disgrace and ruin, he made common cause with his country, and resolved, by one bold, revolutionary movement, to relieve both the national distress and his own.' Thus it commenced,-and the progress was worthy of such a beginning.

Parties soon manifested themselves; one was for a union with Spain; another for a constitutional monarchy, under another branch of the Braganzan family; a third, and this the most numerous, for making the poor old king their instrument and their slave. They dismissed the British officers; they proclaimed a pardon for all the yet-unpardoned traitors who had borne arms against their native land; they provoked a separation with Brazil, and even sent troops thither with the insane hope of retaining that great colonial empire by force. When they had brought their king from Brazil, they treated him with studied indignity, and in so doing, they roused against him and their whole proceedings, not his meek spirit, but the spirit of the nation at large, among whom the feeling of personal loyalty still existed in full strength. They acted with insolence and injustice towards the queen, who, with all the worst qualities of her race, had strength of character enough to have made her conspicuous in the blackest ages of history; and they wantonly insulted the Infante Don Miguel, who was his mother's own son. A few members of the Cortes there were who meant well, and would have done well if they could; all talked liberally; and this must be said to their honour, that they shed no blood; but they demurred at no other act of tyranny. Better and wiser men might, and, indeed, must have disappointed the hopes of a suffering people, who looked to legislative measures for immediate benefits which no legislation could bestow; but they would neither have provoked the contempt, nor drawn upon themselves the indignation of their countrymen. While they were in possession of the stage, Signor Balbi collected the materials for his laborious compilation; the diligent Italian believed all their professions, thought that the regeneration of the Portugueze was effected, and that Astræa would return to earth, and fix her abode at Lisbon. Alas! instead of Astræa, a new Nossa Senhora made her appearance in a rabbit-hole, and Don Miguel put down the heroes of the Cortes, as easily as they had set the regency aside. Blacker scenes then ensued, which, whenever truth shall be brought to light, will show that the age of historical tragedy is not

yet

yet gone by. One who had been a notorious traitor, who as such had been condemned to an infamous death, and executed in effigy while he was serving in Massena's army, had returned to Portugal upon the general invitation which the Cortes held out to such enemies of their country. This man obtained complete ascendancy over the king, and made the worst use of it. Hating the English as heartily as he had done when they baffled and defeated the invading army in which he held a command, he prevented the king from recalling Marshal Beresford, and he surrounded him with revolutionary adventurers, to the exclusion of all those who had served him with fidelity in evil times.

Under the government of the Cortes, men had been brought into notice who, on the ground of birth or property, had no claim to advancement; but whose enthusiasm in the popular cause, directed by a competent portion of natural talent, ensured them a degree of distinction when thus enabled to make themselves conspicuous. These men were treated with kindness and attention by the king, who, either from the dictates of his native benevolence, or the fear of their again recovering the ascendancy, or else acting in obedience to the counsel of his favourite Pamplona, appeared to be forming from among them a party wherewith to defend himself, alike against the intrigues of the constitutionalists and the suspected plots of the ultraroyalists. This, of course, produced the estrangement of many distinguished friends, who beheld the intrusion, as they considered it, of an order so plebeian, with all the jealous pride for which the aristocracy of the Peninsula are famed.

The precise object of Pamplona in recommending this course to his master cannot easily be divined; but the whole tenour of his life leads to the conclusion that his motive could not be good. His policy, however, succeeded in promoting his own interests: he was appointed principal minister to the king, and in that office formed every department of the government in subordination to him. As the minister of war, he took into his hands both the patronage and management of the army; and he availed himself of this power to surround the infante so exclusively with his own creatures, that he could do nothing but what had already been marked out for him by Pamplona. So completely was the prince enthralled by this man, and so notorious was the fact, that instead of being spoken of as generalissimo, according to the rank which the king had conferred upon him, he was frequently called, in derision, and in reference to his subordinate powers, "Clerk of the army." How the king maintained a government which the prevailing influence of Pamplona shortly rendered again universally unpopular, has been made a matter of surprise; but, perhaps, the strongest argument in its behalf was contained in the imposing presence of an English line-of-battle ship, which, on the occupation of Spain by the French troops, had been sent to the Tagus. The continuance of this vessel in the river, and the pledge of British support

which it seemed to offer to the king's authority, tended, no doubt, in some measure to overawe the discontented of both parties, whose numbers were rapidly increasing throughout the kingdom.

The extreme harshness maintained towards the queen, and the unmeasured severity of her treatment, excited the compassion of many, and daily augmented the number of her friends; until the whole of the party which had been originally the king's, espoused her cause, while the constitutionalists had disappeared; and the king, with the exception of the faction immediately about him, was without political supporters. Yet, among the lower orders, he was beloved with an enthusiasm that, all circumstances considered, almost deserves the name of infatuation; and to the prevalence of such a feeling I can bear personal testimony, having witnessed at this time one of the most striking ebullitions of native loyalty that ever I saw displayed.

The king had ordered a wolf-hunt to take place, near Santarem; and for that purpose, the peasantry of the surrounding country were commanded to assemble in different directions, all moving upon a point where the royal shooting-party were to await the approach of their prey, to be thus driven towards them in a manner similar to that in which the tinchel of the Highland hunters collects the deer. A circle of several leagues was formed, which narrowed as the individuals comprising it approached the central station. When this duty was performed, such a scene ensued as baffles description. The joy of the rustics was of an almost frantic character, when, to the number of about three thousand, they caught a glimpse of the royal carriages, upon which they pressed as though resolved to demolish them. While some shouted their strenuous vivas in the most joyous tone, others were bathed in tears of silent delight; and many were thrown to the earth in their attempts to kneel, as the carriages moved off.

'My astonishment was really great; for I well knew that, in addition to the long-protracted miseries to which these poor creatures had been subjected, through the contentions of their rulers, many of them were, at this moment, in a starving condition; for no allowance was made for their support during their attendance, some for three days, others for less, to promote the royal pastime, at a considerable distance from their homes. Nor could they bear away provision for that period, without leaving their helpless families destitute. Half an hour previous to this enthusiastic display, I had seen the cavalry, who were employed to keep the cordon entire, roughly striking some of them with the flat of their sabres, because they did not move exactly in their assigned places; yet all was insufficient to abate the force of their loyal devotion. I was riding near the king's carriage, when a poor woman, with an infant in her arms, ran out from a cottage, and throwing herself on her knees, with so little regard to her personal safety that she was in great danger of being rode over, sobbed out, "Let me see my king! Look, my child, at our beloved father :now I can die contented."

In all this there was no artifice, no attempt to produce stage effect,

effect, nor any expectation of personal advantage. All was evidently from the heart; and no one could witness, with indifference, such an affecting burst of simple love from an almost perishing people to a monarch, who, whatever he might possess of the will, had not enjoyed the power of conferring one national benefit upon them. It was impossible to view the miserable condition and the artless good feeling of these poor creatures, without a sentiment of deep commiseration, and an ardent desire that they might be brought to participate in the blessings which civil and religious liberty never fail to produce.'p. 115-121.

The favourite, who had now been created Count of Subserra, persuaded the unhappy king that Don Miguel's intention was to depose him, and place his mother at the head of affairs. The king had but too much reason to know that any thing might be believed of his consort; and he must have had cause also to distrust the disposition of this, her second son; but that son had hitherto kept the straight and honourable line of duty, and he had rendered the most essential service to him. Happy would it have been for all parties if he had then been treated with the confidence which at that time he deserved, a constitutional government established, and the succession secured to him, as it ought to have been ;-happy would this have been for all parties, and most of all for Don Miguel himself. Sinister influence prevented this; and the subsequent transactions might seem rather to have occurred in barbarous ages, or in Moorish countries, than in a Christian and European kingdom in our own days. The murder of the Marquis of Loulé in the palace, while the royal family was there, in revenge for his friend Subserra's conduct, the assumption of power by Don Miguel, and the arrests which he ordered upon the scale of a Roman proscription, roused the king, both by a sense of personal and immediate danger, to the only act of vigour that he ever exerted; and Miguel was secured on board an English man-of-war, and sent out of the country. These events are put in the clearest light, and related in the most temperate and candid spirit, by Captain Browne, than whom no person had better opportunities of knowing the whole truth. The death of the king was for himself a deliverance devoutly to have been wished, but a great misfortune to the country: irresolute to the last, he left the succession unsettled. His will, however, inclining, as beyond a doubt he did, to Don Pedro's claim, could not have decided it. On either side a strong case might be made out; but when a question is ultimately to be resolved by might, the legal and rightful claim, though it were clear as day, is worth no more than Magna Charta was in Oliver Cromwell's estimation. In this case, the ablest jurists might doubt to whom the succession

had