LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class EIGHT CENTURIES OF PORTUGUESE MONARCHY \ MT . ^-^ m^ ^ Qpti^ediby the Internet/Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.archive.org/details/eightcenturiesofOObragrich DOM MANUEL II, 33RD KING OF PORTUGAL AND 29TH OF THE ALGARVES, Etc. EIGHT CENTURIES OF PORTUGUESE MONARCHY A POLITICAL STUDY BY V. de BRAGANgA GUNHA NEW YORK JAMES POTT & GOMPANY 1911 ^^' '.^ -v^ • -•' • • • • • •• » TO THOSE PORTUGUESE LIVING AND DEPARTED WHO HAVE HONOURED THE PORTUGUESE NAME ABROAD . . . que eu tenho jd jurado, Que nao-no empregue em quern o nao merega, Nem por lisonja louve algum subido Sob pena de nao ser agradecido. The "Lusiads," Canto 7th. Stanza 83. ... for I have sworn That on the unworthy nought will I bestow ; Nor on high rank my flattery will intrude, On pain of reaping mere ingratitude. Translation by J. J. AUBERTIN. 228514 CONTENTS PACK Introductory . . . . . -15 I. The Age of the Heroes . . . .28 II. Camoes ....... 57 III. Portugal for the Portuguese . . -74 IV Marquis de Pombal . . . . .89 V. A Nation's Distress . . . . .103 VI. The Struggle for Constitutional Liberty . 122 VII. Illusive Hopes . . . . .141 VIII. Turn of the Tide . . . . .152 IX. A Friends' Quarrel . . . . . i79 X. Constitutionalism : Its Death Pangs . .201 XI. Men and Principles ..... 240 Bibliography . . . . . .255 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS DoM Manuel II . DoM JOAO I, King of Portugal (i 383-1433) Prince Henry, "The Navigator" (1394- 1460) Vasco da Gama (1460-1524) Affonso d' Albuquerque (1453-15 15) Luiz DE Camoes (i 524-1 579) Marquis de Pombal (i 699-1 782) . Costa Cabral, Count of Thomar, Minister (1839-1851) Duke de Saldanha (1791-1876) . DoM Pedro V, King of Portugal (1853-1861) Almeida Garrett (1799- 18 54) Alexandre Herculano (1810-1877) Serpa Pinto (1846- 1900) DoM Carlos, King of Portugal (1889-1908) JOAO Franco, "The Dictator" . Prime Frontispiece Facing p. 29 33 39 49 65 97 149 153 161 163 177 193 225 241 PREFACE PORTUGAL has stood towards England in such a peculiarly intimate relation that the political events in Portugal must awaken feelings of interest to which no English- man can remain indifferent. Ties of alliance and friendship have formed a strong link between the interests of the two nations. The Anglo-Portuguese alliance, which dates back to the time of the Crusades, was an alliance so precious in obligations that it was maintained by Portugal throughout the whole of her national career, obligations which were renewed in the compact of modern Europe — the convention of Vienna — and the subsequent treaties, the last of which dates from 1909 when King Manuel visited this country. During the Middle Ages the Crusaders of England assisted the Portuguese in their wars against the Moors, and it was with such aid that the first, and the great, king of Portugal re- conquered Lisbon from the Saracens. Some centuries later the great and memorable battle of Aljubarrota was gained over the Spaniards and French by the allied forces of England and Portugal, and the friendship between the two countries was confirmed by the marriage of the founder of the dynasty of A viz to the daughter of John of Gaunt. Charles 11 of England married Catherine of Braganga, who brought to this country, as a part of her dowry, the island of Bombay, a gift that urged England to a great imperial career. When the eagles of Napoleon were planted in almost every capital of Europe, and the Peninsular War linked Portugal sorrowfully 12 Porttigtiese Monarchy enough with the destinies of Europe and larger interests, English and Portuguese soldiers fought side by side to free Europe from the shadow of the French Empire. The inter- vention of Canning in 1826 on behalf of the Constitutional Regency of Portugal against the supporters of Dom Miguel de Braganga, whose cause was identified with the interests of European absolutism, is a fact which the Portuguese cannot easily forget. Even the bearer to Portugal of the Constitu- tional Charter, granted by Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, was a Plenipotentiary of Great Britain. More recently we have the South African War, when England had scarcely a friend in Europe, and Portugal forgot her grievances over Manicaland and rendered every support she could at Delagoa Bay and Beira to her ancient and powerful ally. The pages that follow may therefore engage the attention of the British public. This book is an attempt to call up the soul of Portugal to those who see only its corpse. It is a sketch of the Portuguese nation in which I have tried to bring out the broad lines of the life of the people, and to indicate, as far as possible, the influences which have moulded their politics ; an under- taking which I fear has, from its very magnitude, surpassed my abilities. I tread forbidden ground in these pages, but I do so con- vinced that adverse criticism of any country, however un- pleasant it may be to the Chadbands and Stigginses, cannot be considered abusive if it be made with the intention of stirring up the forces of reform and remedying the defects that it discloses. The motto of my excuse shall therefore be talken from Pope's " Temple of Fame " — "In every work regard the writer's end; None e'er can compass more than they intend."^ ' Essay on Criticism^ v. 255-256. Ptelace 13 This is not the time to cast the horoscope of Portugal. What- ever her future politics, she will have to seek salvation in her own best traditions. May the example of one of the greatest Portuguese that ever lived, who by his genius preserved for Portugal her nationality and her language, continue to incite and to animate those who are treading in his steps to excellence and to honour ! At the time when the greater part of the nation was serving temporary interests, Camoes sought in history the secret of his nation's true greatness, and trusted to his work to keep up the spirit of loyalty in the evil days of the loyal cause. His impetuous sense of right, his disdain of meaner minds and motives, caused him to revolt against that which was false and artificial. And his " Lusiads " has exercised a paramount influ- ence in the political development and internal economy of the nation. In all the crises which have brought into play all the resources of intelligence and all the emotions of conscience of a people, the " Lusiads " has been an influence in the destinies of the nation. When Philip ii in 1580 seized upon the kingdom and reduced it to the abject state of a conquered province, the Bishop, Frei Thomas de Faria, to animate a whole torpid people with a spirit of self-consciousness, undertook, in his eightieth year of age, a work on the " Lusiads " which he dedicated to the Portuguese nation. The poem of Camoes was a potent factor in the revolution of 1640 under Joao Pinto Ribeiro, who commentated the " Lusiads," a revolution which brought the sixty years of captivity to an end and enthroned the house of Braganga. During the regency of John vi, when people would not endure the despotism of a foreign proconsul, there grew up in the country the idea of erecting a national monument to the great bard. When the advisers of John vi trampled on the Constitution of 1822, Viscount d' Almeida Garrett, with 14 Porttigtiesc Monarchy the desire of reviving the great traditions of his country, devoted his muse, while in exile, to the memory of Camoes. When England, the oldest ally of Portugal, sent an ultimatum in 1890, Lisbon witnessed the most heart-rending scene. In the presence of a large crowd Eduardo d' Abreu, a deputy, covered with a black veil the statue of Camoes, which has stood in Lisbon since 1867. "The conqueror," says a Portuguese, "who shall ever attempt to subjugate our beloved country must first tear in pieces every page of the ' Lusiads.' " Parodying these words, I may say that if it was by pointing to Caesar's corpse and by reading his will to the crowd that Anthony succeeded in making the populace rise against the murderers of Caesar ; it is only by pointing to the statue of Camoes and by reading the " Lusiads " to the Portuguese people that it will be possible to rouse the popular conscience to a sense of responsibility for the national unity and political autonomy of Portugal. I have now to perform the pleasant duty of thanking all those who have taken an interest in the publication of this book. I am specially indebted to Mr. Tom Titt for his ready and courteous co-operation. The sketches, drawn after portraits and prints, chosen by myself from various sources not accessible to the majority of my readers, do great credit to the artist. I wish further to thank most warmly Mr. A. R. Orage for the special interest he took in my work, and Mr. H. G. L. Greaves for aiding me with many good suggestions. V. DE B. C. London, 191 i. EIGHT CENTURIES OF PORTUGUESE MONARCHY INTRODUCTORY THE time-honoured Portuguese fables and legends evoke periods that suggest a very remote antiquity. Anticipating an unhesitating belief in all their statements, the old Portuguese chroniclers credit Tubal, the grandson of Noah, with having founded Setubal, the small town to the south-east of Lisbon. Much of the early history of this westernmost state of Europe is, of course, hopelessly involved in obscurity, and depends upon extreme con- jecture. This makes it difficult to choose be- tween the opinions of Herculano, the great Portuguese historian, and those of Theophilo Braga, the eloquent representative of modern Portuguese historical criticism. The former, putting aside a vast mass of legendary lore, has drawn a strong line of demarcation between the 16 16 Porttcgtiese Monarchy Roman Luzitania, inhabited by the most obsti- nately personal of all tribes of the Peninsula, and modern Portugal ; while the latter, admitting into his works the force of tradition, has turned to his own patriotic purposes the fourteen years of Roman war with the brave Luzitanian shep- herd, Viriathus, the Dux Latronum of the Rome of Lucullus and Marcus Cato. Be that as it may, in either case we continually come into possession of information which makes us conscious of a political development at once tortuous and convulsive, but which has happened within the shortest period of the life of a nation. The Roman occupation of the Peninsula, which brought with it an extensive infusion of Roman customs, as shown by the establishment of muni- cipia, the keystone of their political organisation, which survived subsequent dominations and which gave to Portugal the benefit of their rational liberty and mental enlightenment ; the dismember- ment of that proud sovereignty when feelings more selfish operated in the Roman affairs of the Peninsula ; the government of the Vizigoths, who, though unable to bring about the fusion of conquerors and conquered, favoured the principles of liberty, inherited by the ** Cortes," of which the Portuguese have so much reason to be proud ; Introductory 1 1 the debasement of this once strong and manly- race that for two hundred years subdued the country till the turbulence of extreme feudalism led to their overthrow by the Arabs ; the career of the followers of Mahomet, when we hear much less of dearth than in earlier times, their domina- tion marked by permanent conquests of a civilisa- tion that was gradually borrowed or rather absorbed by the subdued races of the Peninsula — all these salient points in the early history of Portugal will excite the keenest interest in those who want to study the nation in her heredity, and strive to surprise the secret of her political development. So much for the blessings and curses upon the cradle of this nation. But to turn to the period that gave to Portugal many of the embellishments of social life, chivalry, and not a little law. At the dawn of the eleventh century, the over- throw of the Koran by the Gospel resulted in the victory of Bermudo ii. King of Gallicia, who seized Oporto and occupied the province of Entre Minho e Douro. Other successes fol- lowed immediately. In 1055 Ferdinand the Great, King of Leon, Castille, and Gallicia, in- vaded Beira, and two years later took Lamego and Vizeu. In 1064 Coimbra was taken and 18 Porttiguese Monarchy made the capital of the new county that was added to King Ferdinand's dominions. At the century's close, Dom Affonso Henriques, the son of Henry of Burgundy upon whom Affonso vi of Castille conferred the title of Count of Porto- Cale, became the founder of the dynasty of Burgundy, from which sprang the first kings of Portugal. But no circumstance could be more propitious to the growth of this nation than the divisions which had taken place in the Omayad Caliphate. Here began the moulding and training of the martial spirit that was to become the spirit of the age. And the Portuguese, fired with the same fervour that led Godfrey de Bouillon and Richard Cceur de Lion to fight the Infidels in Palestine, waged war against the Moors, the foe of their country and the enemy of their religion. It was as though an ecstasy had come upon their soul — as though a voice from heaven had bidden them exterminate the Moor. The first attempt, therefore, of the Portuguese was to banish the Moor, and, in view of subse- quent events, it is pleasing to note their energetic efforts, — the gallant fights of Dom Affonso Henriques, who, when only fourteen, was dubbed knight, and who won the battle of Ourique, Introductory 19 wherein five powerful walls of Badajoz, Lisbon, Elvas, Beja, and Evora fell dead along with the Spanish Saracen and African armies ; the con- quest of Santarem, the stronghold of the Moor, which the Christians since the time of the Leonese kings had attempted to seize ; the reconquest of Lisbon from the Saracen chiefs by Dom Affonso Henriques ; the victories of Dom Sancho i, who increased the orders of knight- hood of military monasticism ; the recapture of Alcacer do Sal in the reign of Dom Affonso ii, and the final driving out of the Moors in the reign of Dom Diniz, the sixth king of Portugal. But, taken as a whole, this period of infancy, for "nations like men have their infancy,"^ when patriotism was just kindling and the frontiers of the kingdom were being formed, a vein of inde- cision runs through the whole policy of most of the early kings of Portugal, whose fickleness jeopardised the prospects of strengthening the independence of the kingdom. The development of national life that had become possible in view of the fact that, at the intervention of the Holy See, Affonso vii of Leon and Castille had recognised Dom Affonso Henriques as king and vassal of the Pope, was ^ Lord Bolingbrc^ce, Of the Study of History, Letter IV. 20 Portttgaese Monarchy disturbed by the action of Dom Sancho i, who, having striven to repudiate the former submission of his father to the Holy See, attempted to regulate the relations of the State with the Church in accordance with the policy of Juliao, his chan- cellor, who had studied the revival of Roman law at Bologna. The attacks on the Bishop of Oporto, who would not yield to any encroachment upon his prerogatives, provoked a papal bull of Innocent iii, warning the Portuguese sovereign that serious punishment was awaiting him in Rome if he should proceed to overturn the estab- lished system of clerical exemption in Portugal ; and Sancho i obeyed the Pope's command. But his son, Affonso ii, whom the penalties of Rome, imposed by Honorius ii, failed to check, scorned to make any compromise with the Pope, and died under excommunication, maintaining to the last the policy of his chancellor, Gon^alo Mendes, an ardent disciple of Juliao. The conflicts continued,' and the clerical element gained a mastery over the council and municipalities. Dom Sancho ii was deposed through the influence of the bishops and excommunicated by Pope Innocent iv — an event which plunged the country in distress. While Dom Sancho ii ended his days at Toledo, his brother and successor, Affonso iii, who had an Introductory 21 exceptional ambition and a turbulent progress, defied the Holy See by pretending to be above the control of its laws, and married the daughter of Affonso X of Leon and Castille while his first wife, Mathilda, the Countess of Bologne, was alive. In the midst of these political transactions partaking of a religious character, which are con- sidered as the most disgraceful part of the history of those times, there came to the throne Dom Diniz, the wisest king that that age produced — a king who turned his attention to the actual orgatiisation of the realm, and laid the foundation of the country's future commercial greatness. The days of the reign of Dom Diniz bore witness to a remarkable intensity of national conscious- ness and piety that characterised the days of his consort, the Queen Isabella, canonised in the sixteenth century. Notwithstanding the instances of avarice with which that great patron of agriculture, the king ** labourer" and founder of the University of Coimbra, is charged, the nation enjoyed perhaps the highest degree of liberty compatible with good order. But if Dom Diniz omitted no fair occasion of bringing before the mind of the nation any example of moral and political excellence, the last kings of the dynasty of Burgundy give the 22 Portagtiese Monarchy impression that they had not learnt to overrule minor interests in favour of great ones. The melancholy history of the period that follows the days of Dom Diniz veils the darkest passages of individual shame. His son, Dom Affonso iv, whose historical individuality consisted in re- volting against his own father, would have brought all the miseries of a civil war had it not been for the reconciliation brought about by the holy Queen between a rowdy son and a devoted husband. But consistently cruel, this " Proud King" further stained his reign with the murder of the unhappy Dona Ignez de Castro, who had married his son. Yielding to the intrigues of Alvaro Gon9alves, Pedro Coelho, and Diogo Lopes Pacheco, and unmoved by the sight of three children begging for mercy, he remorse- lessly ordered their mother to be massacred in cold blood, and her remains to be committed immediately to burial in the Convent of Santa Clara at Coimbra — a tragedy that marred the pages of Portuguese history, but which called forth the sweet and pathetic strains of Camoes, inspired Antonio Ferreira, the Portuguese Horace, to produce '* Ignez de Castro," ^ and was the theme ^ This tragedy was translated into English by Thomas Moore Musgrave in 1825. Introductory 23 of a sonnet of Boccaccio, a tragedy of Fran9ois Lamotte, and an opera of Persian!. No sooner had this king disappeared from the scene, than his son, Dom Pedro " the Severe," signalised the first years of his short reign by revenging the assassination of his wife, Ignez de Castro. Her murderers, anticipating the wrath of the son of Dom Affonso iv, had taken refuge in Castille, and when given up by Pedro *' the Cruel," Dom Pedro's nephew, were thrown into dungeons and subjected to every possible form of torture. The Portuguese king ordered the living hearts of Gon^alves and Coelho — for Pacheco had managed to escape — to be torn out from their bodies, and their hearts and bodies to be burnt together ! Though the anger of this monarch passed as quickly as it had risen, his haughty and inflexible spirit, that would not acknowledge the advantages of dealing diplomatically with the nobility and the clergy, was reflected in all his acts, and he showed no more mercy for clerical than for feudal immunities — a harshness which perhaps occasion and the times might justify. But '* kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle."^ The history of Portugal degenerates now into ^ ;Purk^ on the French Revolution, 24 Porttigtcese Monarchy a chronique scandaleuse. The last hopes of the nation under the kings of the dynasty of Burgundy were rendered unhappy by the levities of King Ferdinand, the successor of Dom Pedro. The passion of this king for a woman, the beautiful Leonora Telles, wife of Dom Joao Louren^o da Cunha, Lord of Pombeiro, was the misfortune of the nation and of the king himself. Dom Ferdinand, notwithstanding his betrothal to the daughter of the Castillian king, married this woman after having made her his mistress. It caused a series of wars with Castille, and the '' Portuguese king found, to his surprise, this woman transferring her affections to a certain Count Andeiro. It is not, however, till 1383 that the line of succession to the throne was interrupted by the death of King Ferdinand, an event which marked a crisis in the history of Portugal. A period of strife ensued similar to that between England and Scotland during the reign of Edward i. John i of Castille, who had married Beatrix, the illegiti- mate daughter of King Ferdinand, had seized the opportunity to claim the throne ; and he had im- prisoned the legal heir to the throne, the Infante Dom Joao, King Ferdinand's illegitimate brother, the son of Dona Ignez de Castro. Introductory 25 The nation, now at the mercy of Dona Leonora Telles, who had assumed regency of the kingdom, felt that it should no longer allow Count Andeiro, lover of the Queen Regent, to dictate the policy of the realm. The Queen's lover and the nation had been at daggers drawn too long to regard each other with any feelings but bitter hatred. The idea gave force and direction to the transitional development of Portuguese politics. And the people, with a confidence in the moral qualities of Dom Joao, the bastard son of Dom • Pedro I, who at the age of seven was elected Master of the famous Order of Aviz, irrresistibly pushed him to the front. Under these conditions of mingled hope and alarm the Master of Aviz plotted the death of Andeiro and organised the defence of the kingdom. With the death of Andeiro, equiva- lent to the storming of the Bastille, there began a period of breathless excitement. The Queen, mad with grief, tried to avenge the death of the man she really loved by inviting the King of Castille to invade the kingdom. To appease her anger the aged and popular Alvaro Paes, the chancellor of the late King, and Alvaro Gongalves Camello, proposed that she should marry the Master of Aviz, the very man who had deprived 26 Portagtiese Monarchy her of her lover ! So seriously was this idea en- tertained that a part of the nation thought of petitioning the Pope to dispense the Master of Aviz from the vows of monastic knighthood. Meanwhile the nation got ready to repel the invasion of the King of Castille, who was approaching the frontiers. The eagerness of a great national effort blotted out all local differences, and the Master of Aviz, who had won the confidence of the people, was elected defender and ruler of the kingdom. The difference between the two kingdoms was finally settled in the decisive and memorable battle of Aljubarrota in 1385, gained over the Spaniards and French by the allied forces of England and Portugal. This battle resulted in establishing the independence of the kingdom and founding the dynasty of Aviz, of which King John i was the first representative. It was about this time that the Portugal with which we shall be concerned came into existence. ** Until Aljubarrota," wrote Oliveira Martins in his History of Portugal., *'the Kingdom of Portugal was but a fief that had revolted in the very same way as Gallicia and Biscay " ; and it is impossible to free the history of Portugal in the times preceding the revolution of 1383-85 — Introductory 27 which is a sort of chronological Mecca for the Portuguese — from the policy so destitute of in- spiration that made her remain dependent on the kingdom of Leon-Castille, that, till Aljubar- rota, had still the means of injuring her political development. Portugal, with her nobles that revelled in the tyranny they exercised over their vassals, and a clergy with a disposition for litigi- ousness, could not possibly attain, before 1383, that national integrity that imparts strength to the character of a nation. It is therefore with the foundation of the dynasty of Aviz, when the Portuguese rose to their opportunities and evinced political qualities with which the race was admittedly gifted, that the history and fate of Portugal, as it relates to the general develop- ment of her politics, properly begins. THE AGE OF THE HEROES DOM JOAO I, being elected king by the ** Cortes" assembled at Coimbra in 1385, conscious that he had to be an inspiring force in a movement to maintain that feeling of independ- ence exemplified in the events that led to the battle of Aljubarrota, married the English Princess Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt by his second marriage, and added another link to the already lengthening chain of the Anglo- Portuguese friendship that then had in its favour a strong and decided public feeling of the nation. By her he became the father of five princes, known as Duarte the Eloquent, Pedro the Great Regent, Henry the Navigator, John the Constable, and Ferdinand the Saint — princes whose undaunted courage and exceptional talents raised Portugal to a pitch of wealth and power that excited the admiration of all Europe. This first representative of the dynasty of Aviz was a very fortunate monarch and a not less happy 38 ccc,c, (■ cccsc c 't \ c Vc c .,«. c c t 'c' c < € e t c c t ,c ,ct ,e, tec c ^'c DOM JOKO I, KING OF PORTUGAL (1383-1433) The Age of the Heroes 29 father. As a king he could avail himself of services such as those rendered by Nuno Alvares Pereira, the immortal hero of Aljubarrota, who won the surname of '' Holy Constable,"^ and the advice of his chancellor, Joao das Regras, the great Portuguese legislator. As a father, this King of ** Good Memory " had the satisfaction of seeing his three elder sons, Dom Duarte, Dom Pedro, and Dom Henrique, accompanied even by their boy brother, Dom Joao, who was hardly fifteen, and Dom Fernando, who was not yet thirteen, who, as Christian princes, deemed it their duty to resume hostilities against the Infidels, win their golden spurs by proceeding to Ceuta and fighting the Moors in Morocco itself. And the Conquest of Ceuta, the stronghold of Islamism, once held by the Vizigoths and recovered by the Moors in the time of Dom Roderick, that unhappy king immortalised by Southey in his poem, ** The Last of the Goths," was a great event in the history of Portugal, not merely as the first conquest made by the Portuguese outside their own ^ This great Portuguese hero is now awaiting beatification. The Order of Carmelites that had in his honour an office proper, in all the Carmelite provinces of Portugal even before the decree of Pope Urban viii, has done its best to obtain this privilege, and a few months ago the Rev. Fr. Wessels, Postulator of the causes of Carmelite Saints, stated that Rome would, in a year, sanction the beatification of Nuno Alvares Pereira. 30 Porttigtiese Monarchy territory, but as to the magnitude of the effects by which it was followed. Europe had at this time witnessed with alarm the extension of the power of the dreaded Crescent. Every Christian Power was greatly incensed and had sworn dire vengeance against the fanatics of the Neo-Arab religion. Raymond Lullio had, towards the end of the fourteenth century, brought out his famous treatise, " De Fine," where that renowned sage of Majorca had urged Europe to organise her forces and to oppose the followers of Mahomet and preserve Europe from Turkish desolation, if not from conquest. In the history of that epoch, we find that a Portuguese prince intimidated a Turkish invader to check his boundless appetite for continental extension. That prince was Dom Henrique, one of the five sons of King John i, known as Prince Henry the Navigator. The Turk, however, treated contemptuously the request made by Prince Henry. But the Portuguese prince lost no time in punishing the impudence of Muhammed ii, and resolved to bring the contemptuous ruler to his feet. His mind became busy with a plan to which he devoted his life and fortune — namely, to discover a new way to India. Convinced that one of the most effective means of crushing the The Age of the Heroes 3i Moorish ambition was to destroy the medieval trade routes which carried on a traffic that ex- tended from the Mediterranean to India and from the heart of Africa to Astrakan, then in the hands of Arabian and Moorish merchants, he gave the Portuguese nation the impetus towards that grand development which assigned to her for ever the indisputable position which she holds in the history of European nations. Prince Henry the Navigator, whose loftiness of purpose renders him an inspiring example, and whose motto, ** Talent de bien faire," was verified in all his actions, invariably directed to the advance of civilisation, may be said to have created a memorable era in the history of his country. It was at his observatory at Sagres, on Cape St. Vincent, and under his guidance that the Portuguese prepared themselves to dis- cover new lands ; and from that solitary village in the Algarve, **our sailors," says Pedro Nunes, ** went out well taught and provided with instru- ments and rules which all mapmakers should know." It was in the solitude of his retirement that Prince Dom Henrique welcomed foreign mariners like Cadamasto and De Nolli, and draughtsmen like Fra Mauro and Andrea Bianco, who had sought his protection ; and, surrounding % 32 Portagtcese Monarchy himself by Arabian astronomers, not to mention the geographer, Master Jacome, brought especi- ally from Majorca,! he laid the foundation of a movement that immortalised his name. And, to use Mr. Major's words, *' if, from the pinnacles of %Vs» our present knowledge, we mark on the world of waters those light tracks which have led to the discovery of mighty continents, we shall find them all lead back to the same inhospitable point of Sagres and to the motive which gave it a royal inhabitant." ^ The discovery of Porto Santo by Bartholomeu Perestrello in 14 19, and the rediscovery of Madeira by Joao Gonial ves Zarco and Tristao Vaz,^ were the first-fruits of Prince Henry's enterprise. Soon after, the Portuguese had destroyed the belief embodied in that traditional rhyme, ** Quem passar o cabo de Nao ou tornard ou nao,"* by doubling, in 1422, the Cape Noun, the southernmost African promontory yet known and hitherto considered an impassable barrier. Ten years later Gon9alves Velho Cabral had ^ Vzde Azurara, Chronica de Guine\ cap. xviii. 2 Vide The life of Prince Henry of Portugal^ surnamed the Navigator^ and its Results, by R. H. Major, F.S.A., London, 1868. 3 This was a rediscovery, as Robert Macham had died there more than half a century before (1344)- * " Who pass Cape Non Must turn again or else be gone J^ c « c e * » -c c c c c c « 'e c « c c c e^t c t c t c c c* * cc It PRINCE HENRY, "THE NAVIGATOR (1394-1460) The Age of the Heroes 33 touched the island of Santa Maria belonging to the Azores Islands. The year 1434 had seen Gil Eannes daringly doubling the Cape Bojador to the south of the Morocco coast, and that event had been followed by the dis- coveries of the island of Cape Verde and the Guinea Coast. But the great Prince Henry, who had already procured a bull from Pope Eugenius iv, which guaranteed to the Portuguese all the discoveries between Cape Noun, in Morocco, and India, and whose services to learning gained for him the designation of ** Protector of the studies of Portugal," did not live long enough to witness the realisation of his plans. He died on the 13th November 1460. Many years, however, elapsed before a new impulse was given to geographical discoveries begun by him. Dom Duarte, or Edward, as he was named after Edward iii of England, his eldest brother, who had succeeded King John i, and whose reign will be associated with the plague which thinned the population of the kingdom, left the throne to his son, Dom Affonso v, during whose minority the Regency of Dom Pedro, the second son of John i, marked an event in the political development of the country. But Dom Affonso V did very little to encourage maritime 3 34 Porttcgtiese Monarchy discoveries. In the first years of his reign he embittered the existence of his uncle, whom the people, to affirm the principle of their sovereignty, had chosen, in opposition to the wishes of the widow of Dom Duarte, to be the Regent of the Kingdom. Yielding to the intrigues of the Count of Barcellos, the natural son of King John i, on whom Prince Dom Pedro, when Regent, had conferred the title of Duke of Braganga, the young King waged war against his uncle. His vengeance had been such that, not satisfied with seeing Dom Pedro fall dead in the encounter of Alfarrobeira, he had ordered the corpse of the brave and learned brother of Prince Henry to be left on the battlefield! Afterwards, he turned his attention to Africa, and his victories obtained him the surname of the "African." In his crusading fervour he struck a new coinage — the crusado, so called because of the cross on its reverse — and he became busy with expeditions to the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco to avenge the disaster of Tangiers and the injury lately done to Portugal by the Moors in the person of Prince Ferdinand, who had been delivered over to the Infidel in pledge for Ceuta, and who had met with an ignominious death after a captivity The Age of the Heroes 35 of a few years — a prince so noble that his resignation won him the title of the ** Constant Prince," of whom even the King of Fez could not help saying that "if he had been a Moslem he ought to have been worshipped as a saint." Affonso v's pretensions to the throne of Castille, which resulted in the complete defeat of the Portuguese army at Toro and the entire submission to Ferdinand of Castille of those Castillian nobles who espoused Princess Joanna's cause, had also left him very little time to continue the geographical work of his uncle. It was not, therefore, till his son, John ii, ascended the throne that the great era of maritime exploration began in Portugal. This King of Portugal, yielding to the influence of some of his councillors, made, of course, the great mistake of dismissing Columbus as a visionary, and thus let a neighbouring nation share in the triumphs of a man who, to quote the words of Ferdinand, the son of Columbus, in his Life of the Admiral, "began to think that if men could sail so far south one might also sail west and find lands there." ^ But the same King, ^ Christopher Columbus' stay in Portugal was from 1470- 1484, during which time he served in the Portuguese expedition to the coast of Guinea. He married the daughter of the famous Bartho- lomeu Perestrello ; and Las Casas, in his History of the Indies^ 36 Porttigtiese Monarchy who was to be one of the most highly gifted kings of Portugal, encouraged by the dis- coveries of Pedro de Covilham, who, in his dispatches to the King of Portugal sent from Cairo, had pointed out that the East might be reached from the south of Africa, began to conceive the possibility of reaching India and discovering the realms of Prester John — that mysterious Christian potentate supposed to have his court somewhere in Central Africa. Thus Bartholomeu Dias rounded the cape which he called Cabo Tormentoso or Stormy Cape, but vMich John ii, as if anticipating the success of the coming expeditions, named the Cape of Good Hope. By this one discovery, which had been the cherished vision of the long life of Prince Henry, a great fact was accomplished. It opened to modern Europe the wonders of another hemisphere. " As soon as the news reached Venice," Priuli writes in his diary, "the population was thunderstruck, and the more wise among them regarded the news as the worst they could have received." *But most of the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese were, however, reserved to refers to Columbus having gained information from Perestrello's map and papers. The Age of the Heroes 37 be effected in the reigns of his cousin, Manuel i, the Great, as he is surnamed, and of John iii, his successor. We have now arrived at the most brilliant period of the history of Portugal, when she sent forth a host of her sturdy sons, year by year, to discover new lands, and she produced men such as Vasco da Gama, Dom Francisco d' Almeida, Dom Affonso d' Albuquerque, and Dom Joao de Castro — men who were destined to make her history for ever glorious. The two successful voyages of Columbus seemed to have urged the Portuguese to con- tinue that great work begun by Vaz Teixeira and Gongalves Zarco. The discovery of a new way to India in 1498, when, five and a half years after the voyage of Columbus, Vasco da Gama crossed the Indian Ocean and cast anchor at Calicut, was followed by the discovery of Brazil, or the lands of Santa Cruz, or Holy Cross, as they were called, by Pedro Alvares Cabral, and of Labrador by Caspar Corte Real in 1500. A year later, Joao de Nova Castello dis- covered the islands of St. Helena and Ascension, after which came the discovery, by Tristao da Cunha in 1506, of an island which is still called after him. The same year Ruy Pereira Coutinho 38 Porttigtcese Monarchy explored Madagascar and the Mauritius Islands, and a year after Lonren^o d' Almeida found his way to the Maldive Islands. Meanwhile, great events were taking place beyond the seas. Vasco da Gama had paid a second visit to India. The Portuguese legions had overrun some of the most civilised countries — countries possessing a great literature and in an advanced political state. The King of Portugal had assumed the title of *' Lord of the navigation, conquest, and commerce of Ethiopia, Persia, Arabia, and India," which Pope Alexander vi had confirmed to him by a bull in 1502. Viceroys had been dispatched to the East with instructions to build fortresses and to secure the Portuguese supremacy beyond the seas. The Portuguese explorers, however, in their enterprising spirit, pressing forward and drawing the world after them in their course, had dis- covered new lands. In 151 1 Francisco Serrao and Antonio d' Abreu set out to explore the Molucca Islands, and discovered Java, Banda, Amboine, and Madura, and soon after, Pedro Mascarenhas had discovered the isle of Bourbon. Four years later Duarte Coelho had found his way into Siam. In 15 17 Perez d' Andrade arrived at the islands of Poulo Condor, and • • ! cI « , 5 • c*.**t { ' - , * e e • • « ♦^ y/)f';.: ^/^ VASCO DA GAMA (1460-1524) The Age of the Heroes 39 in 1520 established himself in Canton. The same year Magellan rounded South America through the straits that bear his name, and sailed across the Pacific to the Philippines, where he met his death. The discoveries did not stop here.^ A few more followed. Thus this small nation, with barely four millions of inhabitants, became the theatre of the most remarkable events which have influenced the history of mankind. The greater glory which Portugal had acquired as the result of her geographical discoveries and conquests in the East, had almost eclipsed the recollections of her ancient triumphs against the Moors. Nor were the intellectual exertions of Portugal less conspicuous than its martial achievements. The same age which witnessed the expedition of Vasco da Gama, the conquests of Albuquerque, and the bravery of Duarte Pacheco, beheld the advancement of learning which was represented by Gil Vicente, the Portuguese dramatist, who appeared many a ^ In 1542 the adventurer, Femao Mendes Pinto, discovered the archipelago of Japan. In the year 1861 R. H. Major laid before the Society of Antiquaries, and thereby informed the scientific world for the first time, that the island of Australia was discovered in i6oi by Manuel Goedinho de Herdia, a Portuguese navigator. 40 Porttigtiese Monarchy year before Shakespeare or Calderon and whose Autos are a glory of Portuguese literature ; Bernardim RIbeiro, and Christovam Falcao, the founders of the romantic pastoral school which is representative of national feeling ; Garcia de Rezende, the compiler of the Cancioneiro Geral, and Antonio Ferreira, the Portuguese Horace, who produced ** Ignez de Castro " — the earliest tragedy of modern Europe. All these facts, which could have been produced only by a patriotism that becomes possible when a community of feelings gives common interests, stirred the national life of the Portuguese. The Portuguese had grown into a great nation rich in great personalities — a nation of great sailors, explorers, and generals. But if that period of Portuguese history, replete with such great and heroic actions, was adorned by so many virtues, it was also darkened by many crimes. What scenes of religious fervour, what revolutions, what paroxysms of rage and resent- ment are not involved in the details of this period ! With the discovery of a new way to India, and with the rapid growth of the Portuguese power in the East, Portugal became one of the most The Age of the Heroes 4i powerful world empires of history. Lisbon had become the entrepot which the Italian republics had so long held for Eastern and Indian trade. During this period, to quote an impartial opinion, " Portugal enjoyed its maximum wealth and greatness, and for a while Lisbon remained the great European emporium of Indian goods. Its warehouses were filled with commodities exceed- ing both in variety and in amount those formerly brought to Europe by way of Suez and the Mediterranean, comprising Indian stuffs, silks, cotton, spices and pearls, ivory and gold dust, sugar from St. Thomas, wine from Madeira, salt, and southern fruits. Dutch, German, and English merchants made it their rendezvous and took away costly freights." ^ A period had undoubtedly arrived in the destiny of the nation which seemed to require the presence of some great mind to mould its affairs. Manuel i, though inheritor of a great throne, did not possess the virtues of his ancestors. Vain, and prone to private magnificence, his first thought, when he became king, had been to ascend the throne of Castille. It was to attain ^ Vide The Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce from B.C. iSoo-A.D. 1789, by John Yeates, p. 179. 42 Porttigtiese Monarchy this object that he had wished to marry the Infanta Isabella of Castille, widow of his nephew, Prince Alfonso of Portugal, who had gone back to her country and contemplated taking the veil. And to please the bigotry and intolerance of the eldest daughter of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castille, Manuel i, re- gardless of the impolicy as well as the injustice, had issued an edict for the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal. Not only was an edict published ordering them to leave the country, and every conveyance cunningly withdrawn from them, but Manuel i, fancying himself an up-to-date Herod, had ordered every Jewish child under fourteen years of age to be taken away from its parents and brought up as a Christian ! And on the Easter Sunday of the year 1496 Portugal witnessed one of the most heart-rending scenes ever beheld, when Jewish mothers, in their des- peration, laid hand upon their own children, threw their babes into the rivers and wells, and took their own lives ! But this is not all. The accusations of sectarian bigotry were greedily swallowed by the populace ; and while the King was given over to hunting, a massacre of Jews was taking place in Lisbon — a massacre which, for savage and bloodthirsty cruelty, perhaps beats any The Age of the Heroes 43 such attempt. The comparative exemption of the Jews from the plague that then broke out had been enough to make them suspected. They were accused of being the cause of plague. The sincerity of their conversion to Christianity was questioned, and thousands of Jews were dragged upon scaffolds, erected at Rocio and Ribeira, which were set on fire, and they were hanged or hacked to pieces by the fanatical mob. Their women were violated and subjected to every outrage, and their homes made desolate ! Such savage ferocity is too appalling to be explained on the usual principles of human nature, and Portugal must share the disgrace of such inhuman crimes which were committed by a people that seemed to have lost sight altogether of that spirit of tolerance that pervaded the whole political system of the days of their early kings, like Sancho ii and his successors, when Jews and their religion were on no account thought sub- versive of morals or incompatible with the prosperity of the nation, and the first Portuguese legal code, ** A ordena9ao Affonslna," set out plainly, for the nation, laws that regulated the relations between all classes and discouraged all fanatical hatreds. The absolute political equality of the Jews with the rest of the nation was such 44 PorttigtJtese Monarchy that we find Portuguese kings, like Dom Diniz and Dom Fernando, entrusting the high posts of Inspector of Public Revenues to two Jews, both bearing the name of Judas, Dom Pedro i creating Moses Navarro " morgado " ^ of Santarem, and kings John i and John ii employing Jewish physicians at the Court ! King Manuel's hopes, however, were soon baulked of their fulfilment. He failed in his attempt to annex the Crown of Castille to that of Portugal. Manuel married Isabella, but she died when giving birth to a son, who, to his greatest distress, also died. Disappointed in his hopes and wounded in his vanity, he turned his attention to the wealth which would flow in from the spoils of con- quests in the East, and he lost no time in dispatching royal ships to the land of promise beyond the Atlantic to fetch Eastern and specially Indian luxuries. He was so much preoccupied with the prospects of wealth before him that, despite the little influence Antonio Carneiro, his able minister, exercised over him, he had not the constancy steadily to adhere to his minister's policy. He had reached so high a point of ambition and vanity that he devised all means to * He who possesses an entailed estate. The Age of the Heroes 45 impress the world with Portugal's wealth and power. To supply this demand new and ex- traordinary efforts became requisite. And woe to the viceroy who did not subordinate his political plans to the commercial objects of King Manuel ! His famous mission to Pope Leo X, the splendour of which bears no com- parison even with the pageantry of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, when the whole of Italy flocked to Rome to see the great Indian elephant covered with tapestries and jewels, which was presided over by Tristao da Cunha, was one of his many devices to produce effects that would remind Europe of the greatness of the Portuguese monarch. This inordinate vanity was perhaps enhanced beyond measure in Manuel by the consciousness of absolute power. He was the product of the age. His ancestor, John ii, though he won the surname of ** the Perfect King," following the general tendencies of his epoch, had deprived the nobles of their rights and posses- sions. By erecting the scaffold on the Praga of Evora wherein the Duke of Bragan^a, the haughtiest and the wealthiest nobleman not only in Portugal but in the whole Peninsula, was hanged, and by decapitating the heads of the representatives of an aristocracy with a public 46 Portttgtiese Monarchy spirit and a public opinion of its own, he had prepared the way for a complete change in the monarchy and made it absolute. And in the reign of Manuel this absolutism as- sumed force and definiteness. Manuel grew up, therefore, in an atmosphere of servility and adulation. The nobles having abdicated all the dignity and self-respect of their class, intrigued for court posts and, by dint of court interest, contrived to appropriate to themselves a large share of such power and wealth as the sovereign had to bestow. And Manuel, having found a congenial atmosphere in the adulation of the Portuguese nobles, rewarded them for it. Such was the state of affairs which prevailed no less in the ideas of noblemen than in the details of government. And its influence extended to affairs in the East, where the Portuguese, through the energy and determination of such men as Dom Francisco d' Almeida and Affonso d' Albu- querque, surnamed the ** Great," had succeeded in establishing their supremacy. The two great viceroys were victims of Manuel's selfishness. Perverted imaginations had pictured to him their imperial policy as overbearing and insolent, and the King, fearing perhaps that they stood in his way of ambition, unscrupulously dismissed them. The Age of the Heroes 47 Dom Francisco d' Almeida, the first Viceroy of India, so famous for the first naval war in the Indian Sea, which destroyed the powerful Egyp- tian fleet and the artillery of Venice specially sent to India to oppose the Portuguese in the East, was so intrigued that his early death ^ perhaps saved him from the disgrace awaiting him at home. But when we question if there be many parallels in the history of successful rule and statesmanship to that offered in the career of Albuquerque, we see how great was the injustice done to the services rendered by him to his un- grateful country. The great Albuquerque, who, within the short period of five years (i 507-11), had succeeded in establishing the Portuguese supremacy in the East — he who had conquered Goa, made himself master of Aden, Ormuz, and captured Socotra and Malacca, the key of the navigation of the Indian archipelago, and thus let his country appropriate the trade of the East — was made to suffer the deep humiliation of being asked to resign the post of Viceroy of India ! The most infamous and the most unscrupulous ^ He was killed at the Cape of Good Hope on his return from India. He put into the Bay of Saldanha, and there a quarrel ensued between his attendants and the Kaffirs which resulted in the Viceroy being killed with fifty of his followers. Vide Chronica del Ret Emanuel por Damido de Goes^ segunda parte, ch. xiv. 48 Portuguese Monarchy charge against Albuquerque was that he was too fond of engrossing power. The Httle- minded Portuguese, who were carrying their intrigues within the royal precincts and inciting a pusillanimous king to dismiss his greatest warrior and statesman, were unable to realise the far-reaching effects of Albuquerque's imperial policy^ that attests his profound respect for political morality and his knowledge of political obligations. Albuquerque had been entrusted by his Sovereign with the scheme of excluding all other nations from participating in the advan- tages of commerce with the East. But supremacy in trade involves military and naval efficiency. And armies and fleets require men. Albuquerque, therefore, by inducing as many Portuguese as possible to marry native women, was perhaps * The union of judicial and revenue functions, which is to-day adopted by the British in India, had been devised by Albuquerque in his scheme of settlement of Goa. The co-operation of the natives of India with European officials to conduct the affairs of the country was also a part of his policy (vide Commentaries of Albuquerque^ vol. ii. pp. 125-129). He did away with the custom of Suttee — the burning of the widow — a custom which, in British India, was not abolished until 1829, when Lord William Bentinck was Governor of India (vide Commentaries of Albuquerque^ pt. ii. ch. xx.). These commentaries were compiled by his illegitimate son, Braz d' Albuquerque, from the dispatches of the great Albuquerque forwarded to King Manuel. They were translated into English, from the Portuguese edition of 1774 by Walter de Grey Birch.. ■••■f ^ utf AFFONSO D" ALBUQUERQUE (^453-1515) The Age of the Heroes 49 taking the most obvious measures of precaution dictated by the conditions of the mother country — a scheme which he thought would create sym- pathies and suggest amalgamation. And his aim in that policy must have been to form subjects of Portuguese blood proud of their allegiance to the Portuguese throne and their right to the Portuguese flag. To found such a policy Albuquerque evinced a strong spirit of independence. And it cost him his dismissal from the Viceroyalty of India. The great Viceroy, however, did not survive long the ignominy to which he was subjected by his King. He died of grief, and his last words were : *' In bad repute with men because of the King, and in bad repute with the King because of the men, it were well that I were gone."^ Those words, uttered by Albuquerque on his death-bed, must have been a veritable thunderbolt upon the imperial head and the ungrateful country ! The consequences, however, of this time-serving policy were felt in the days of John iii, whose reign marked the acme of Portuguese power and the beginning of its decay. This reign witnessed the establishment of the Portuguese at Java and Borneo and the expeditions of Menezes and ^ Vide Commentaries of Albuquerque^ vol. iv. p. 175. 4 50 Porttigtcese Monarchy Antonio de Motta to New Guinea and to Japan respectively, and could boast of an Empire com- prising no less than thirty-two foreign kingdoms and four hundred and thirty-three garrison towns subject to the Portuguese crown. But the Portu- guese ascendancy in the East was tottering to a fall, and the dismemberment of the Portuguese Empire was making rapid progress. After the death of the great Albuquerque one or two conquests were made by his successors. The Moluccas were taken in 1522 and the island of Diu in 1546. But most of the governors and viceroys who were sent to India in those days contented themselves with becoming the mere instrument of bartering the produce of the industry and ingenuity of the natives. The administration of India had become a hotbed of knavery and corruption. Imperialism, which Albuquerque and some of his successors fenced round with just measures, was now the plea for every exercise of oppression and infringement of human freedom. And " the Hindoos and Mohammedans," when oppressed by the suc- cessors of Albuquerque, ** used to go to Goa to his tomb and make offerings of flowers and oil for his lamp, praying him to do them justice."^ * Vide Commenta?ies of Albuquerque^ vol. iv. pp. 199-201. The Age of the Heroes 5i The series of imprisonments^ which degraded the days following the dismissal of Albuquerque accentuate the symptoms of the decadence of a great nation that had become corrupted by the wealth of the East Indies. The generation of Portuguese that followed the days of Prince Henry, Vasco da Gama, and Albuquerque were unable to realise with adequate intensity the grandeur and sanctity of ideals that lay behind that series of events that lent a forcible impulse to commerce, navigation, and foundation of colonies. The nation immersed itself in material facts. The inspiring poetry of religion was destroyed, and the peaceful message of Christ was turned into a bloodstained law of persecution. Coupled with the loss of prestige in the East, in Africa, in rapid succession, followed one loss of territory after another. Azamor, Arzila, Alcacer-Seguir, ^ Duarte Menezes (1521), Governor of India for three years, had to return under imprisonment ; Lopo Vaz de Sampaio (1526) met with the same fate after being governor for over three years ; Nuno da Cunha, who was governor for more than nine years, died in his chains on the way home ; Martim Afifonso de Sousa (1541), governor for three and a half years, was incarcerated; Antonio Moniz Barreto had to return a prisoner after three years of governorship; the Count of Vidigueira (1596) was im- prisoned and ordered home; Ayres Saldanha (1600) came home a captive ; Jeronymo d' Azevedo (1612) died in prison ; the second Count of Vidigueira (1622) had to return under im- prisonment. 52 Portttgaese Monarchy and other towns held by Portugal in the north of Africa were being abandoned with the prodigality of a spendthrift. And as the slave trade in- creased the African colonies lost the attachment and respect of the natives. But John III, though a bad administrator, a fact confirmed by the records of the proceedings of the Cortes of 1525 and 1535, and an in- strument in the hands of his minister, Pedro d* Alca90va Carneiro, son of the famous Antonio Carneiro, minister of Manuel i, exhibited in an age of signal corruption a perfect cleanliness of hands. Nor should it be forgotten that cares, necessities, and the circumstances of the moment conspired from early youth to make him the man he was. When he died, the Treasury was much exhausted. The conquests in the East had not only deprived the country of its best part of population, but had also expended her resources almost to the verge of exhaustion. The accumu- lation of wealth of the East Indies, without a corresponding increase of domestic industry, had corrupted the true sources of national prosperity, and the State, in debt and crushed by an ever- recurring deficit, was forced to borrow at ruinous rates from Flanders. The condition of the National Exchequer was such that Cortes had The Age of the Heroes 53 to be convened In 1525 to devise means to meet the payment of the 800,000 crusados agreed to be paid to Charles v of Castille as the dowry of Infanta Dona Isabella, sister of the King of Portugal. But this was not the only evil. The very succession to the throne was involved in the most mischievous uncertainty. John in had allowed a clause in the marriage contract of his daughter Dona Maria, first wife of Philip 11 of Castille, by which their sons had a right to succeed to the throne of Portugal in the event of the reigning sovereign of Portugal dying without any issue. Hence the eagerness with which the birth of King Sebastian, the grandson of John iii, was expected. The tide of loyalty and affection waiting to flow in favour of John iii's successor made him later a favourite of the nation. When Sebastian was born "the whole nation was mad with loyal excitement."^ It was indeed a dark hour for Portugal, and rarely has a great nation been through such a crisis. Phijip 11, in the plenitude of his malignant greatness, was count- ing every minute to put in his claim and subject Portugal to the Spanish crown. But the aversion of the Portuguese to Philip, and one that cannot ^ Vide Fr. Bernardo da Cruz — Chronica de elrei D. Sebasticlo. 54 Porttigtiese Monarchy too often be repeated, was that he was a Spaniard. With the birth of King Sebastian people, there- fore, thought the troubles were at an end. They were but begun. King Sebastian ascended the throne in an age barren in great events and heroic characters, but an age teeming in no ordinary measure with the germs both of intellectual and material develop- ment. The policy of Dom Constantino de Bragan^a, the Viceroy of India, had made reason- ably certain that the change contemplated by him would be an improvement on affairs in the East. But the royal youth, instead of turning his attention to the redress of abuses in the administration of the country, was too anxious of rousing the crusading spirit of his country to wage war against the Moor. To attack Con- stantinople, to free Palestine or conquer Morocco, was his golden dream. He was convinced that he had to place the cornice on the edifice of which his ancestors John i, Alfonso v, and John ii were privileged to raise the pillars. And the people, sick of gloom and disappointment, were as mad to support him as he was to believe that he was in a position to check the ambition of the Moor in Africa. Sebastian no doubt possessed the martial spirit of his ancestors, but The Age of the Heroes 55 had not the poHtical virtues of those men. He was too impatient and too doggedly convinced of the practicabiHty of his plans to be really fit to undertake an African expedition. But he would listen to nobody. Dom Joao de Mascare- nhas did have sufficient courage to speak out openly against the African expedition of King Sebastian and remind the young King to take along with him "a sheet to bury the kingdom." And Sebastian called the veteran defender of Diu "a coward." Martim Affonso de Sousa, who had been Governor of India, was seen shouting in the Royal Palace and asking why, if it was usual to tie raving lunatics, they had let loose this one ? Not more effectual were the dying appeals of the heart-broken Queen to her grandson nor the advice and remonstrances of the Pope. Nothing seems to have stood in his way. To supply the deficiences of Portuguese levies he imported soldiers from Flanders, Spain, and Italy. From Germany alone he had 3000 soldiers. He even made use of the services of the Italian troops, commanded by the Irishman Thomas Sternmile,^ that had touched Lisbon on their way to Ireland to help the Catholics against the English Protestants. So sure was Sebastian ^ Who was created Marquis of Leinster by the Pope, 56 Portagtiese Monarchy of his victory that he was carrying with him a rich crown specially designed for the first Christian Emperor of Morocco ! Gorgeous uniforms, richly embroidered and trimmed with the finest lace, had been supplied to the guard that was to escort him on his victory, and the court preacher who was accompanying him had received instruc- tions to have his sermon ready for delivery on the day of the would-be Emperor of Morocco's triumphal procession ! Even the royal banner displayed, for the first time, an imperial crown yet to be won. Such a delusion could not last long. The great disaster of Alcacer-Kebir, on the 4th of August 1578, proved how utterly frantic was King Sebastian's plan. Of about 16,000 men who, in June of that year, sailed for Africa, fifty individuals only returned. The whole kingdom wept for the young King who, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, had been slaughtered on the plains of Alcacer ; for the nobility which had been deci- mated and the honour of their arms dimmed. And that battle, where were expiated the many national sins that led to that disastrous compaign, was, and will always remain, a day of mourning for Portugal. II CAMOES THESE were the chaotic conditions of the Portuguese spirit when there arose a genius to whom the contradiction between life such as it was and Hfe as it should or might be became so evident that he felt it his duty to influence the feelings of those who could enjoy the music of his song. This was Camoes, who produced the "Lusiads," that most enduring national monument of Portugal and the Portuguese spirit — a work which, though every line throbs with the personality of a great poet, none the less is a poem where, to quote Theophilo Braga, ** we find exemplified that tradition which insures moral unity to a people and is a bond which constitutes a nationality." "Eu canto o peito illustre Lusitano A quern Neptuno e Marte obedeceram." (" The Lusiads," Canto i. 3.) ^ ^"The nobler Lusian's stouter breast sing I, Whom Mars and Neptune dared not disobey." (Translation by R. F. Burton.) 57 58 Porttigtiese Monarchy These lines declare the living spirit of the "Lusiads," in which Camoes forms and fosters the national idea. The poet celebrates the principal virtue of the Portuguese, their heroism on land and at sea. The " Lusiads " is an epic. But it is an epic poem to be put side by side with the Ionian Songs, the Mahabarata and the Kale- vala. It presents no fixed hero, but seeks to fashion the glory of a country in the highest development of character. The very title ^ of the poem denotes the true nature of its subject. It is this elevation of purpose that has won for Camoes so exalted a name among his country- men. No one can possibly read the '' Lusiads " without hesitating as to which is most worthy of admiration — the magnificent rhythm, the ex- quisite humanness, or the great truths which flash at once on the minds which receive them ; and the range of the poet's influence has been such that wherever there are men of Portuguese origin, speaking the Portuguese language, there the genius of Camoes is one of the important facts of life. ^ The " Lusiads," from the Latin name Lusitania of Portugal, from Lusus of Lysas who settled a colony in Lusitania. See Plin. i. iii. c. I. Vide De Antiquitatibus Lusitania^ 4 vols., by Andr^ de Resende, the most ancient records that identify the Portuguese of to-day with the Lusitanians, Camoes 59 There had already been efforts to create a work which was to be the epopee of Portugal, and among those historians who had attempted to record the events in prose I may include Joao de Barros, the Livy of Portugal, the great his- torian whose statue Pope Pius iv placed in the Vatican near that of Ptolemy, and of whom the Venetians erected a statue in their pantheon of great men ; Diogo do Couto, the well-known chronicler ; and Lopes de Castanheda, author of the History of the Discovery and Conquest of India, Barros having purposely served in Africa and Castanheda having visited India to fit them- selves for their task as historians. But it was reserved to Camoes to be the creator of the " Lusiads," and raise this imperishable monument to the glory of his country, and he remains a unique personality not to be underrated. Portugal can also point to other epic poems, such as the ** First Siege of Diu," by Francisco d' Andrade ; the ** Second Siege of Diu" and the "Shipwreck of Sepulveda," by Jeronymo Corte Real ; the ** Affonso the African," by Vasco Mousinho de Quevedo ; the " Ulyssea," by Gabriel Pereira de Castro ; the " Malacca Conquered by Francisco de Sd de Menezes," ; the " Ulyssopo," by Antonio de Souza de Macedo; and the ** Destruction of 60 Porttigtiese Monarchy Spain," by Andr6 de Silva de Mascarenhas ; but none of these singly nor indeed all of them to- gether are near enough to make the light of the " Lusiads " invisible. And Pope's remark about Homer that "he swallowed up the honour of those who succeeded him " may justly be applied to Camoes, whom even the great Tasso, who dedicated a sonnet in his honour, had to acknow- ledge that "he feared him as a rival" — a verdict which called forth the following remarks from Chateaubriand : " Can anything be more beauti- ful," wrote the author of the Genius of Christianity, "than this association of illustrious equals re- vealing themselves to one another as it were by signs, exchanging salutations and conversing together in a language intelligible to themselves?" ^ It is of course difficult, when speaking of the place which is fit to assign to Camoes, to dis- criminate with precision between the claims that arise from his poetical endowments and the sig- nificance of his position in the history of his country. The most obvious of all remarks about Camoes is the close connection between his poem and his life. If it is his poem which gives importance to his biography, his biography has ^ Vide Essai sur la Literature Anglaise et considerations sur le genie des hommes, des temps et des revolutions , 1835. Camoes ei increased the interest which attaches to the poem. No Portuguese represents more perfectly the spirit of an age and the soul of a race than the great poet. Born when Vasco da Gama, the discoverer of a new way to India, died, and having ceased to live soon after the disaster of Alcacer-Kebir, before suffering the humiliation of seeing his country lose her autonomy and become a province of Spain, Camoes is the incarnation of the Portuguese soul, and his '* Lusiads " repre- sents not only the poetry but the entire wisdom and accumulated experience of a nation. The life of Camoes was not a mere chapter in a history of literature. Of his childhood and boyhood no record remains, but as a poet his life touched humanity and was not in any sense apart from it. Here and now it is enough to say that his career, so far as it can be traced, was one of misfortune. In his youth he loved a woman, and was banished. The woman he loved had an influence in his life of equal importance, though perhaps not so great, as the influence of Laura de Sade in the life of Petrarch. She was Dona Catharina d' Athaide,^ sister of Dom Antonio d' Athaide, a ^ According to Visconde de Juromenha, Camoes saw Dona Catharina for the firs time in the Church of Christ's Wounds in 62 Portuguese Monarchy favourite of John in, and a Lady of Honour to the Queen. Like another Ovid, he violated the laws of the royal household in endeavouring to see the lady he loved. Such conduct was not to be easily forgiven in the days of a king like John iii, the *' Pious " as he was called, whose ancestors had al- ready made example of those who had carried on love intrigues within the royal precincts. John i suffered one of his favourites, whose amorous passions had incited him to enter the Palace by night, to be burnt alive ! Affonso v for similar reason did not hesitate to behead Diogo de Lisbon, as Petrarch did Laura in the Church of Avignon ; and — strange coincidence — both poets seem to have seen the ladies of their thoughts on a Good Friday ! A circumstance to which the poet himself alludes in the follow- ing lines of his sonnet — " Sweetly was heard the anthem's strain And myriads bow'd before the sainted shrine, In solemn reverence to the Sire divine, Who gave the lamb for guilty mortals slain. When, in the midst of God's eternal fane, (Ah, little weaning of his fell design !) Love bore the heart which since has never been mine. To one who seem'd of heaven's elected train ; For sanctity of place or time were vain 'Gainst that blind Archer's soul-consuming power Which scorns and scars all circumstance above ; Oh ! Lady, since I've worn thy gentle chain, How oft have I deplored each wasted hour. When I was free and had not learn'd to love ! " (Lord Strangford's translation.) Camoes 63 Sousa. Anyway, the adventure cost Camoes a banishment to a place on the banks of the Tagus. Thoughts and passions began to seethe in him which only could be matured in the solitude of an exile. It was at this period that he conceived the idea of writing the ** Lusiads," which was to immortalise his fame. He left his place of banishment to fight for his country, and at a battle with the Moors at the Strait of Gibraltar he lost his right eye,^ which was destroyed by a splinter. The poet had now finally broken with the old life of a courtier. In deep disgust and anger at his countrymen he resolved to leave Portugal for good in the Sam Bento commanded by Fernando Alves Cabral, and the last words he is said to have uttered on board of that vessel, bound for India, were those of Scipio Africanus, ** Ungrate- ful country, thou shalt not possess my bones." In India the ingenious chicanery with which some of the viceroys carried on their dishonesty provoked Camoes' virulent satires, entitled ** Dis- parates na India," ^ which attacked the policy of the Portuguese in India, where life for Portuguese ^ In Sir Richard Fanshawe's English translation of the " Lusiads" the poet appears blind of the left eye, which perhaps may be accounted for from the plate having been reversed. 2 " Follies in India." 64 Porttigttese Monarchy was not subject to reason, but was something to be enjoyed. Camoes, therefore, conscious of those follies and vices so well described by the chronicler, Diogo do Couto, in his Soldado Practico, which were strangling the energies of a people, and animated by a nobler devotion to his country, could not but protest against those Portuguese who, lapped in Oriental luxury, seemed almost to have lost the thought of their mission ! But it exposed Camoes to a rancorous hostility. He was immediately sent to Macau in China, where he was appointed Commissary of the Estate of Deceased Persons. It was at Macau, in the quietude of the Grotto,^ according to a tradition not improbable in itself, that much of the " Lusiads " was written. Five years later, when allowed to return to Goa, Camoes freighted a ship in which he em- barked with all his wealth, but unhappily he lost everything he possessed in a shipwreck in the gulf near the mouth of the river Mecon in Cochin China. He saved his life by swimming, and carried in one hand the manuscript of the ** Lusiads," an episode which he pathetically related in the ^ An engraving of it may be seen in Ouseley's Oriental Collec- tion, and another will be found in Sir G. Staunton's Account of the Embassy to China. C « » c- « c c 'e c,* « • 'e e e 'c* c (QXll'-^Zill) LUIZ DE CAMOES (1524-1579) Camoes 65 following lines of his poem in which Camoes, with the confidence of a great genius, anticipated the fame that he would acquire — a prediction seldom so completely realised as it was in the Portuguese poet's instance : — "Este receberd placido, e brando, No seu regago o Canto, que molhado Vem do naufragio triste, e miserando Dos procellosos baixos escapado, Das fomes dos perigos grandes quando Serd o injusto mando executado N'aquelle, cuja lyra sonora Serd mais afamada que ditosa." (Canto X., Stanza cxxviii.) ^ Deprived of his wealth, Camoes had to remain on a strange shore till he had enough to proceed to Goa. He was welcomed to Goa by Dom Constantino de Bragan^a, Viceroy of India, who was one of the few friends the poet had. Here, again, his life proved a chain of miseries and woes. No sooner had Dom Constantino left India — with whom, may safely be said, ended all hopes in the ^ " Upon his soft and charitable brim The wet and shipwrecked Song received shall be Which in a lamentable plight shall swim From the shoals and quicksands of tempestuous Sea, The dire effect of Exile when on him Is executed the unjust Decree : When repercussive Lyre shall have the Fate To be renowned more than Fortunate." (Translation by Sir Richard Fansbawe.) 5 66 Porttigtiese Monarchy East — than Camoes was intrigued and abused by his old enemies. Unjustly accused of misconduct at Macau, he, like a criminal, was ignominiously thrown into prison and put into irons. Being set free he determined to return to the mother country, and accompanied Pedro Barreto Rolim to Mozambique, where he incurred the displeasure of Pedro Barreto, then Governor of Africa, who imprisoned him for debt. His friends, however, paid his debts, and at last, after about seventeen years of suffering and sorrow, he found himself, with his poem almost ready for publication, in Lisbon in 1570, to witness the ravages of the yellow fever in the very heart of the city, " when there died seven hundred persons a day, when there was no place to bury the dead, and fifty to sixty corpses were daily thrown into ditches." ^ The " Lusiads " was therefore written under the pain of exile, persecutions, and frowns of poverty. The great poet's powers may therefore be said to have matured through suffering. "Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong ; They learn in suffering what they teach in song." The above verses were written by Shelley, and Shelley had his share of such griefs as these. 1 Vide Oliveira Martins, Historia de Portugal^ vol. ii. p. 37. Camoes 67 In 1572 the " Lusiads " was published and dedi- cated to the young King Sebastian, to whom the poet addressed the following verses — " E vds, 6 bem nascida seguranga Da Lusitana antigua liberdade, E nao menos certissima esperanga De augmento da pequena Christandade Vds, 6 novo temor da Maura langa Maravilha fatal da nossa idade, Dada ao mundo por Deos que todo O mande ; Para do mundo a Deos dar parte grande." (Canto I., Stanza vi.) ^ Camoes conceived great hopes of King Sebastian's reign. He had found in the young Monarch a strong attachment to the traditions of his country, which, till then, were to exterminate the Moor, against whom it was, in those days, just to feel anger, and hard not to thirst for vengeance. Camoes had seen King Sebastian shifting his royal quarters in the kingdom from one end to the other, going from place to place and opening the graves of his ancestors. At Batalha, by his ^ " And thou, the best born fortress and the stay Of ancient Lusitanian liberty, No less of hope, the most assured ray For growth of nascent Christianity ; Thou, the avenging marvel of our day, New terror of the Moorish lance to be, Given to the world by God to rule it all. That of the world great part to God may fall." (Translation by J. J. Aubertin.) 68 Porttigtiese Monarchy order, the corpse of John ii had been lifted from the grave where it had been lying three-quarters of a century, and, having placed the body against himself, the young King had measured his own with that of the great king, his ancestor. " Be- hold the best officer of our kingly office," he is said to have exclaimed when commanding the Duke of Aveiro to kiss the withered hand of the corpse ! And the poet, convinced perhaps that one of the most effective means of invigorating the mind of the people for future action was to encourage a familiarity with great national events, was loyally supporting the young King. Indeed, in the situation in which Sebastian stood, with a people receiving no impression from the rest of the world and making no impression upon it, perhaps he saw no other way to awake the people from the slumber into which they were falling but to appeal to the martial spirit of the Portu- guese. And once the crusading spirit was rife, perhaps he hoped the African campaign, if suc- cessful, would have shaken the whole fabric of Portuguese society. Into what an agony of sorrow the disaster of Alcacer - Kebir threw the poet can, therefore, hardly be imagined. Camoes received the news of the calamity that had befallen the country Gamoes 69 when he was lying ill, and amid all the vicissitudes of his chequered life, the event preyed upon his mind. How could he, patriot as he was in every sense, who — in the epilogue, addressed to King Sebastian, with which the poem concluded, and which, to quote Adamson^s words, " does honour to the noble heart and to the patriotism of Camoes and is full of the most zealous loyalty of love of truth and justice, and expressed with a degree of liberty becoming his elevated character " ^ — had almost incited the young monarch to undertake such an expedition, be insensible to a concern in which every Portuguese must have been so deeply affected ! The poet's last days were days of misery. He spent them in affliction, forsaken by all. Camoes — the pride of Portuguese literature, who had every claim to the bounty of his sovereign, whose poem had stirred the nation's inmost soul — was allowed to starve ! A pension of 15,000 reis, equivalent to jCs, Ss.,^ had been granted to him — an annuity which even carried with it the obliga- tion of obtaining a new decree for its payment every three years. Even this meagre pension ^ Vide, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Luis de Camoens, by John Adamson, F.S.A., vol. xi. p. 55. 2 Money being then six times its present worth, it would amount to about ;^2o to-day. 70 Portagtiese Monarchy was withdrawn by Prince Cardinal Henry. His poetical glory, that chimerical comfort in real calamities, was contested. Francisco de Sd, whose muse was of a theological turn, was patronised by Cardinal Henry ; and Camoes, now aged and reduced to crutches, had to subsist on the alms which his servant Antonio, a native of Java, begged throughout the city and at night shared with his master in a small apartment in the Rua of S. Anne ! The French poet Ronsard, once the idol of France and especially of his king, Charles ix, had been given the Portuguese Order of Christ, and the author of the **Lusiads" had to petition his king for the payment of his pension. But what could be expected of a country where the noblest of her sons were ungratefully treated, and some, to Portugal's shame, had even to fill paupers' graves ! The ignominy to which the two great Viceroys of India, Dom Francisco d' Almeida and Affonso d' Albuquerque, were subjected was not the only instance of a country's degradation. Duarte Pacheco, whose face was scarred with the sorrows of his country, who with 900 Portuguese defeated an army of 50,000 natives and defended Cochin — a victory which completely established and increased the prestige Camoes 7i of the Portuguese in India — was put in irons and died of starvation in a hospital ! And his widow had to beg in public for a living. " The fate of this hero," says Goes, ''was of a nature to warn mankind to beware of the inconstancy of the kings and princes and their small remembrance of those to whom they are bound." ^ This is not all. Dom Joao de Castro, whose fame rests upon the relief of Diu, in consequence of whose victory the Portuguese possessions in India form still a part of the kingdom, was treated most shamefully. He who had gained a victory with the glory of a Thermopylae,^ was allowed to die the death of a pauper. *' I am ashamed to tell you, gentlemen," were the last words of Dom Joao de Castro, ''that the Viceroy of India, expiring with wounds and fatigues on the bed of sickness, is in want of necessaries which even a private soldier finds in a hospital ! " " I also," added the entreating Viceroy, "request ^ Vide Damiao de Goes, Chronica do Senhor Rey Dom Manuel. 2 The courage displayed by the four hundred Portuguese who opposed the thirty thousand men, was such that one of the defeated generals, recognising the exceptional bravery of the Portuguese, said : " The Portuguese are certainly a distinct species of men of such superior strength and courage that if Providence had not made them few in number, like the ferocious and venomous animals, and shut them up in the dens of the North, they would eventually destroy the rest of the human race." 72 Porttcgtiese Monarchy you will order a change of bed linen, as I have not a second quilt to my bed." Such was the reward of patriotism bestowed upon those whose great deeds are sung by Camoes. " Nao deixarao meus versos esquecidos Aquelles, que no reino U da Aurora Se fizeram por armas tao subidos, Vossa bandeira sempre vencedora : Hum Pacheco fortissimo, e os temidos Almeidas porquem sempre o Tejo chora : Albuquerque terribil, Castro forte, E outros em que poder nao teve a morte." (Canto I., Stanza xiv.)^ Pacheco, Albuquerque, Castro, and Almeida, who had suffered long and greatly in the service of their country, won ingratitude and died miserably destitute. Camoes could be no exception to the rule. The poet finished in an almshouse in Lisbon his career of glory and of misery. Camoes, a poet, a soldier, a patriot, was buried like a pauper in the Chapel of Franciscan Nuns ^ " Nor shall they silent in my song remain. They who in regions there where Dawn rises By Acts of Arms such glories toil'd to gain. Where thine unvanquisht flag for ever flies, Pacheco brave of braves ; th' Almeida's twain Whom Tagus mourns with ever weeping eyes ; Dread Albuquerque, Castro stark and brave, With more the victors of the very grave." (Translation by R. F. Burton.) Camoes 73 in Lisbon ! His very winding-sheet was given out of charity for his grave ! He died in 1579 in the fifty-sixth year of his age. A friar, Josepe Indeo/ who must have been present at the dying scene of the poet, wrote : ** What a lamentable thing to see so great a genius so ill-rewarded ! " "I saw him die," said he, *'in a hospital in Lisbon without having a sheet or shroud to cover him, after having triumphed in the East and sailed 5000 leagues ! " So lived and so died the great poet. And to Portugal's greatest shame it was necessary that a foreign monarch had to come to Portugal to save the poet's mother, old, and left behind to mourn the loss of her son, from perishing from want of food ! Philip 11, on his entry into Portugal, asked to see Camoes, but the Portuguese poet was dead. But the Castillian monarch, like Alexander, who, when besieging Thebes, spared the house of Pindar out of reverence to that poet, paid a tribute to the memory of Camoes by his thoughtful kindness to the poet's mother. ^ A Carmelite, who entered the fact on the margin of a copy which he bequeathed to his Order, and which, according to Adamson, was in the possession of the late Lord Holland. Ill PORTUGAL FOR THE PORTUGUESE " T DIE with my country," were the last words X uttered by Camoes on his death-bed. In this sentence may be summed up the estimate of one of the grandest and, morally, one of the noblest Portuguese that ever lived. If we draw the lesson we might from these words, and analyse the fate of the country that gave birth to the great poet, it certainly affords no very pleasing picture of the destiny of a nation. No sooner had the great heart which inspired the ** Lusiads" ceased to beat than the sword of the Duke of Alba did away with the independence of Portugal, and ever since Portuguese history has been a record of her disasters. A people who had secured its autonomy with successes such as those of Atoleiros, Trancoso, Aljubarrota, and Valverde, had to suffer the dis- grace of the Spanish yoke ! And this without any prospect of advantage, but, on the contrary, 74 Portugal for the Porttigtiese 75 with the certainty of losing her colonies and having her commerce destroyed. The history of Portugal at that time possesses a mournful interest. After the disaster of Alcacer- Kebir a great part of the nation had slept in such indolent security that, when they awoke from rapturous trance, they found themselves sold to a foreign and despotic monarch. Seven candidates disputed the throne of Portugal round the death-bed of Cardinal Henry, Sebastian's grand-uncle, who had succeeded him and who was the last king of the House of A viz. Phillip II of Spain was claiming the throne because his wife was a daughter of John iii, and he himself a descendant of King Manuel, whose daughter, the wife of Charles v, vvas his mother. The Duchess of Braganga was assert- ing her right to the throne because she was the daughter of Edward, Manuel's second son. Antonio, the famous Prior de Crato, whose daring escape from the Moors, when taken prisoner after Alcacer-Kebir, had made him a favourite with the people, was maintaining his legitimacy of birth and fighting for his claims arising from being son of the Infante Louis, a younger son of Manuel. Ranucio, the Prince of Parma, and Emmanuel Philibert, the Duke of 76 Portttgtiese Monarchy Savoy, putting aside the statutes of Lamego, were also claiming the throne — the first as son of Maria of Portugal, granddaughter of Manuel, and the latter as son of Manuel's daughter. The Queen Mother of France was tracing her descent from Mathilda, wife of Alphonso iv of Portugal. The Pope claimed because Portugal was once feudatory to the See of Rome, and had no direct male heirs to the throne. Even Queen Elizabeth of England had gone so far as to declare that she had a right to dispute the interests of the House of Lancaster in Portugal. But the "most catholic " King triumphed over every one of his rivals. It was not, however, the aid of 35,000 men under the famous Duke of Alba, or the strong fleet sent under the Marquis of Santa Croce, that gave him an advantage over other pretenders. Philip 11, acquainted as he was with the Portuguese who were at the time guiding the destinies of the nation, fomented mischief and intrigue which he knew would serve the purpose of his own ambition. And these men, unhesitatingly accepting his bribe, had not only dissolved the Cortes, but even entrusted the military command of the towns on the frontier to persons of their own morality. So low had sunk the national spirit that rejoicings instead of Portugal for the Porttigtiese ii opposition had met the Duke of Alba when he marched upon Lisbon and proclaimed Philip i of Portugal. The Portuguese were welcoming the Duke of Alba, whom they knew had administered the Netherlands and, in the interests of his master, caused ** eighteen thousand persons to be executed there." ^ The sixty years of captivity, as the Spanish domination from 15 80- 1640 is called, were, how- ever, passed in sullen discontent and exasperation. The Philips had perjured themselves and broken the most solemn oaths. But the subjects of Philip 11 did not know half the infamy of their sovereign. They did not know, as we know, that the revenues of the country and her colonies were absorbed by the Spanish monarch in his struggle with England and the Netherlands. The destruction of the Great Armada by the English in 1588 had ruined the last hope of the Portuguese naval power, and the obstructions put by the Spanish monarch in the way of the Dutch trade with Lisbon, which, through his bigotry, was entirely prohibited in 1598, had resulted in the Portuguese Empire in the East being appropriated piecemeal by the Dutch, who, by 1602, had established a Dutch East India Company and wrested Amboyna 1 Vide Motley, R se and Fall of the Dutch Republic. 78 Portttgaese Monarchy and the Moluccas from the Portuguese, and with them obtained the monopoly of the spice trade — the Portuguese having to go to Holland to purchase the Eastern luxuries of which they had had the monopoly. Under the rule of Philip's two successors, dis- content grew apace. The Portuguese had carried on a trade in the East without rivals, and now they had seen that the most valuable of their possessions and commerce had passed into the hands of those whom Philip's intolerance had made their enemies. Besides political conscious- ness, the desire of men to shape their own destinies had not died altogether. There was a revival of her national traditions. Beside a pleiad of poets that arose under the influence of the Spanish vassalage, Fr. Bernardo de Brito and Antonio Brandao, in their *' Monarchia Lusitana," told the story of Portugal's independence before she was reduced to the abject state of a conquered province of Spain. Thus the prophecies of Christovam de Moura, who, in exchange for a Viceroyalty of Portugal, given to him by Philip i, had abdicated all the sentiments of a Portuguese and looked forward to a permanent union of his country with that of Spain, did not come true. Portugal for the Porttigtiese 79 The Portuguese seized the opportunity of the insurrection of Catalonia and Biscay, and rose under the leadership of Joao Pinto Ribeiro. The Regent, Margaret of Savoy, was arrested, the Spanish chief minister put to death, and thus "sixty years of captivity" were brought to an end, and the house of Braganga was enthroned in Portugal. Portugal had now recovered her independence, and the eighth Duke of Braganga^ was welcomed as King by all the States at war with the House of Austria. The vile attempt of the Spanish ambassador in Rome to assassinate the new re- presentative of Portugal at the Vatican provoked general indignation and called forth a movement of sympathy in favour of Portugal. The accession of John iv, the first representative of the House of Braganga, was, however, incapable of giving to the country that moral and social regeneration that alone could save it from further catastrophes. When John iv was chosen to ascend the throne, the edict published on that auspicious occasion concluded thus : — ^ He was the direct lineal descendant of the bastard son of John I, who had married the daughter of Nuno Alvares Pereira, the " Holy Constable," the famous hero of Aljubarrota. 80 Portuguese Monarchy **The Portuguese in placing John iv upon the throne are justified by every incontrovertible right — the right of succession and the constitu- tional laws of the kingdom — rights which are more than sufficient to overturn a forced and tyrannical possession of sixty years established and maintained by force of arms." But what of the results? The excitement of revolution being over, people relapsed into immediate indifference. The attitude of the Cortes towards the new King, before whom all public bodies of the kingdom had dwindled into insignificance, was servile. To exalt the Crown and keep the institution of Royalty from decline, they neglected the rights of the people ; and the great hereditary possessions of the Bragan9a family — almost one-third of the property of the whole kingdom belonged to the King — enabled John IV to dispense with the Cortes. Such was the reign of John iv, which, it is true, marked a great event in the history of Portugal, but which cannot be said to have made the nation happy. A weakness and a want of self- assertion characterised his whole career as a king, which was brought to an end by his death in the year 1656. The years immediately following the death of John iv were years of grave anxiety. Portugal for the Portagtiese si Very troubled was the Regency of the Queen, whose policy had involved Portugal in a war with Spain which, fortunately, had resulted in a series of victories over the Spaniards ; and the accession of the boy, Alfonso vi, proved a source of terrible calamity to the country and created new difficulties in the way of her political development. Alfonso VI was a vicious youth. His vulgar jesting and his disregard of appearances had shocked the nation. It is said that a stroke of paralysis had deranged his mental faculties. A tool in the hands of Conti, his valet, the royal youth had turned a bandit. His own profligacy and imbecility had found satisfaction in organising bands of lawless people and infesting the streets of Lisbon, every licence being permitted to his followers. This debauched youth in 1662 declared himself of age, and presumed himself fit to assume the responsibility of the government of his country. He was, however, fortunate enough to avail him- self of the services of Castello Melhor, an eminent statesman who merits to be better known than he is, whose unswerving loyalty to his country and whose efforts to restore the tone of a debased public opinion very few indeed will dispute. But 82 Portuguese Monarchy Castello Melhor was not irreproachable in his policy. He arranged the marriage of Alfonso vi with the French Princess, daughter of Duke of Nemours and granddaughter of Henry iv of France. A charming and accomplished Princess was brought from a brilliant intellectual life in France to marry a man who had shown a decided propensity for all that is loathsome and filthy. The fourteen months of married life were a perfect martyrdom to this poor woman. Afflicted with grief, she saw no other way to separate herself from the man whose nature had reduced her to despair but to retire into privacy at a convent and apply for a divorce. This enlisted the feel- ings of the nation on the side of the unhappy Queen. And Dom Pedro, whose gallant and romantic nature contrasted with that of Alfonso vi, placing himself at the head of the revolution, bridled his brother's licentiousness by shutting him in the Palace ; and having received, on the first day of the year 1668, the oath of allegiance of the Cortes, he assumed regency of the kingdom. A divorce was granted to the un- happy Queen, and Dom Pedro, who had already professed sympathy for her in her hours of trial, married the divorced wife of his brother, Alfonso vi, who was removed to Azores, and from there Portugal for the Portagtiesc 83 brought to Cintra, where he died in 1683. Thus ended his days — a king who was born to leave a name of gloom and terror, and who was the victim of his own passions. Dom Pedro, who ascended the throne after his brother's death, was a good-natured king, and the nation seemed to have hoped that his good qualities would find pleasure in giving the monarchy its old aspect. His reign, so memor- able for the treaty of Methuen,^ prepared by Sir Methuen, the ambassador of Queen Anne, did not disappoint the nation. In a situation of great difficulty, when Portugal had to keep time with the foreign policies of Spain, France, and England respectively, he availed himself of the good services of Ericeira, his minister, and conducted the affairs of his country with prudence and some degree of foresight. We are now to enter upon a period when the Portuguese dug before their feet a pitfall into which circumstances pushed headlong their destinies and interests. A situation similar to that created by the dis- ^ By this treaty " England agreed to admit Portuguese wines upon the payment of 33^^ per cent, less than the duty paid upon wines from France ; and the woollen cloths of England, which had been prohibited in Portugal for twenty years, were to be admitted upon terms of proportionate advantage." 84 Portagtiese Monarchy CO very of India in the sixteenth century had repeated itself. In 1573 a certain Tourinho had discovered in Brazil a territory of " Mines " and found emeralds. Explorers had hastened to the spot, and later discoveries had found that the region of Cuyati would yield an immense treasure of gold and precious stones. Thus during the first half of the eighteenth century, one hundred millions sterling were to be drawn in diamonds and precious stones alone ! John v, therefore, when, in 1706, he succeeded his father, Dom Pedro 11, on the throne, though he found the kingdom involved, through the Methuen treaty, in the war of Spanish Succession, saw his country grow- ing in wealth, and he was so misled by the appearances of the hour as to imagine the nation so well advanced along the road of material prosperity as to revive the extravagances of Claudian Caesars and the last Flavian. The conduct of the people was in truth not different from their ancestors two centuries ago. Portuguese literature had handed down the traditions of the old empire. But they did not profit by the lesson of the past. The fact that the power of Holland alone had sufficed to tear from them most of their Eastern dominions did not seem to abate a jot of their absurd preten- Portugal for the Portugtiese 85 sions. To account for it, we may adopt the fatalism of the Moor or the indolence of the Peninsular. Certain it is that the national moral sense was at its lowest point. Saint-Simon says somewhere in his Memoirs that one of the best tests of the history of a country is the know- ledge of the daily routine of palace life. This is exemplified in the character and records of a profligate and bigoted Court such as that of John V — a Court swarming with sharpers and courtesans, and with a nobility required to glitter at Court festivals and bull-fights rather than participate in the affairs of the State. John v led a gay life that would have brought any Court into disrepute. His flirtations — we must use the term, for we know no better one — with the nuns of the Convent of Odivellas describe the sensuous nature of the Portuguese monarch. He not only squandered money on mistresses and begat bastards, but to atone for his sins devoutly threw away sums of money on the erection of monasteries and chapels. He built the sumptuous building at Mafra, the Portuguese Versailles, now a desolate ruin, where three hundred Franciscans were lodged in regal splendour, and a part of which formed the King's palace. It was his idea to build the famous Chapel of St. John the Baptist in the Church of 86 Porttigtiese Monarchy S. Roque in Lisbon, which is the richest chapel in the world. To appease his remorses he was constantly forcing most valuable presents on the Pope. He had already spent no less than ;^98,ooo in erecting the Archbishopric of Lisbon into a Patriarchate with a sacred college of twenty-four prelates and two hundred dignitaries attached to it, the Patriarch being allowed to officiate in robes like those of the Pope and the vestments of canons resembling those of the cardinals in Rome. The national religious fervour characteristic of the old Portuguese was now extinguished. It was the deification of power. Portugal was now a nation given over to the practices of religious superstition, which were mixed up with their passions, their gallantry, and their crimes. Thousands of Portuguese had turned priests and become monks so that they might be privileged to live on the generosity of the King. One-tenth of the whole population of Portugal idled within the walls of some eight thousand convents. At the same time the fecundity of superstition had created new diffi- culties in the way of her commercial development. The remaining few Jews, who were the backbone of Portuguese commerce, were made to abandon the country and establish themselves at Amster- Portugal for the Porttigticse 87 dam, which, of course, paralysed for ever the Portuguese trade. The extravagances of John v demoralised the nation. The passion for display pervaded all classes : many noble families were ruined in their struggle to vie with each other in outward magni- ficence — a magnificence that merely veiled the moral weakness of a people. But the splendour of John v's Court, which was the most brilliant in Europe, disappeared with that improvident monarch. John v died in 1750, leaving a debt of three millions sterling. The country was on the verge of bankruptcy, yet the proud bankrupt Portugal retained as much love for display in those times of destitution as if it were still a wealthy nation. To quote the simile of a well-known Portuguese historian : — " And the Lord destroyed these cities, all the country about, and all the inhabitants of the cities. ..." Such was the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Such was also the fate of Lisbon. The earth- quake of ist November of the year 1755, which laid Lisbon in ruins, came as a destruction from Heaven. That earthquake, which extended its work of desolation over an area of 4000 miles in 88 Porttigtiese Monarchy diameter, swallowed up in six minutes sixty-one churches and convents, thirty-two palaces of nobility, a newly built quay, and destroyed at least sixty thousand lives ! It was on the morning of All Saints' Day that Lisbon was shattered to pieces. Churches were overwhelmed with crowds of worshippers that were buried with the churches under the weight of their walls and steeples that had suddenly collapsed. Thousands staggered and lost their lives in the floods of the Tagus that had burst upon the city. Fires broke out in every part of the city ; prisoners fled and pillaged those who had escaped death. The effects of this catastrophe, which called forth a vivid description by Voltaire in his Candide, were terrible. The city became desolate, for her beauty was withered away, her monuments and her art treasures had vanished, and her population perished. And it delivered the country into the hands of a tyrant. In other words, it produced the Marquis de Pombal, the famous minister of Joseph i, whose twenty-seven years of administration form one of the many interesting incidents in the history of Portugal. IV MARQUIS DE POMBAL AMONG the many names interwoven with the political history of Portugal no name perhaps has attained here in England a higher rank for notoriety than the name of the Marquis de Pombal. In Portugal itself there are few men of whom more opposite estimates have been formed than Pombal. He is regarded by some as the very embodiment of Machiavellian spirit, and by others looked upon as a patriot misunderstood. But upon one point every one seems pretty much agreed. Pombal was a dictator. Nobody will deny his activity and energy, and it would be unfair not to speak with admiration of the rebuilding of Lisbon after the earthquake. It is recorded that, when asked by the King what was to be done, he is said to have replied, *' Bury the dead and feed the living." For eight days and nights, according to an account, he lived in his carriage, driving from place to place, 89 90 Porttigtiese Monarchy organising the great work of relief to the distressed, and laying, at the same time, the foundation of the new Lisbon. These facts show the man certainly, but not the whole man. In the stormy waters in which the vessel of the State was drifting a firm hand was undoubtedly needed at her helm. A statesman was wanted in Portugal. But it is characteristic of a master mind, when called upon to direct the destinies of a nation, to anticipate events and act accordingly. How does Pombal bear this test? To that question there can be, I think, but one answer: that so very complacently indeed did Pombal regard the present, that he was apt to forget even the past entirely. Pombal's statemanship was too much a matter of impulse. He did not regulate himself by events, but caused events to regulate themselves by him. Herein is the reason why the grand schemes which created his political reputation were, as we shall see presently, dis- solved before him. "The administration of Pombal was peculiarly English in its character and objects," wrote the Count of Carnota in his Memoirs of Pombal^ ^ The Count of Carnota's Marquis de Pombal and Mr. Smith's Memoirs of the Marquis de Pombal are two editions of the same Marqtcis de Pombal 9i published in English — "a work which," to quote the criticism of the Edinburgh Review^ **is an indiscriminate defence of the Marquis, and which has no real historical value." So exceedingly remote from either truth or verisimilitude is this amazing assertion made by the Count of Carnota, that we cannot help but remark that, if he did at all study English political institutions, he seems not to have seen in them anything worthy of copying for his country. Pombal was no doubt several years in England (from 1739-45), when Envoy to the Court of St. James, but he does not seem to have profited much by his stay in England. To begin with, he never acquired a knowledge of the English language — a fault which his admirers minimise by the fact that French was the language spoken at the Court of George 11. He undoubtedly regarded the ad- ministration of Sir Robert Walpole with admiration, and perhaps even entertained the idea that his stay in England qualified him to rule the destinies of his country. Although Walpole cannot be said to have been distinguished for strict adher- ence to any principle, he was a statesman, and work, the author having received a title between the pubHcation of the two editions. ^ Vide Edinburgh Review for August 1872-October J 872, p. i8j. ^ Portagaese Monarchy Pombal could never imitate him, for he lacked the great quality of Walpole — **the power of judging new and startling events in the moment of excitement or panic as they would be judged by ordinary men when the excitement, the novelty, and the panic had passed " — a quality ascribed to Walpole by Lecky in his review of English history in the eighteenth century. In order to arrive at a correct estimate of Pombal, it is necessary to call attention to the fact that his elevation, like that of Ripperda, exceeded his early expectations/ His start in life was due to an uncle's liberality, and he made his way in life by attaching himself^ to those who had places to bestow. His political activity was therefore subsidiary to his ambitions, and it was this thirst for power that inclined him towards a reactionary policy. He knew that in those ^ King John v, tired at the importunities of Pombal, had dehvered himself to this effect : " Why will you be always pestering me about this man ? Do you want to fill my kingdom with troubles and sedition ? You think, perhaps, I am not acquainted with the extent of his capacity ; but I am, and know that he is fit for nothing but the governing of a chandler's shop or, at best, for the chicanery of the law, and would shortly set you all together at variance ; besides, I know the hardness of his heart that is covered with hair." Vide Memoirs of the Court of Portugal and the Administration of the Count d' Oyeras (M. de Pombal), taken from a series of original letters written in French, p. 15. 2 It was the protection of the Cardinal Motta that secured him the post of Portuguese Minister in London. Marqtiis de Pombal 93 days good family connections and consanguinity were of much more avail than intellect, and he worked towards that end. He eloped, or rather abducted, a lady of the highest rank, Dona Thereza de Noronha, niece of the Count of Arcos. After her death he married Countess Daun, a relative of the celebrated marshal of that name, who was known to be intimate with the Queen Consort of Portugal, formerly an Austrian Princess. Pombal throughout his life posed as an aristocrat. When he became all-powerful he advanced his brothers, though they were un- educated, to the highest and most responsible positions in the reign of Joseph i, and their descendants hold to-day titles of nobility. To push his way in Portugal he had to wage war against the nobility and the Jesuits, and the attempt on the life of King Joseph afforded him a pretext to root out the Society of Jesuits and persecute the Portuguese nobility. The con- spiracy against the King, which is known as the "Conspiracy of the Tavoras," was undoubtedly a serious event. Some of the greatest names of the Portuguese artistocracy were involved in it. But it is questionable if assassination really stepped in to work out certain purposes that 94 Portagaese Monarchy Pombal attributed to its promoters, or if the conspiracy was invented by the Portuguese dictator to frighten the young King — a con- clusion at which Caldas Cordeiro arrives, whose modern researches on this subject have enabled him to make an impartial survey of the whole question. But Pombal's hand was laid heavily on the nobility, and he knew they bore him !no love. The nobility, with the part they had taken in setting John iv, the ancestor of Joseph i, on the throne, claimed a right to a voice in the affairs of the State ; but they were to be blamed not only for not having established, at the accession of the House of Bragan9a, any constitution of government, but for letting power slip from their hands, with the result that, when Pombal pro- claimed himself a dictator, they were the natural prey of such a tyrant. In his attempt to found an absolute monarchy and retain supreme power during his own life he revived the methods of a Tiberius. Finding a pretext in the conspiracy against the King, he erected scaffolds on the quay by the river at Belem. His heart gloated over the agony of a Tavora or Aveiro. The Marquis of Tavora, representing the most illustrious Portuguese family descended from the kings of Leon, who Marquis de Pombal 95 had served his country with considerable dis- tinction as Viceroy of India, had his limbs broken, alive ! Such, likewise, was the fate of the Duke of Aveiro, a man of illustrious lineage and a connection of the Royal Family. This is not all. Even innocent children suffered at his hands. The children of the Marquis d' Alvina, three of them under ten years of age, were cast into prison to expiate no other crime but that of their father, who had married a Tavora ! The son of the Duke of Aveiro, an infant, was tyrannically cast into prison. The list of atrocities committed by Pombal is a long one. The Marquises of Gouveia, Alvina, and of Ponte de Lima, the Counts of Obidos, Ribeira, and S. Louren^o, all cast for unknown crimes into the Bastille of Junqueira, were also victims of his fury. Every lonely tower, every subterranean dungeon, was filled with State prisoners. It would not, perhaps, be fair to judge Pombal by the ethical standard of a much later date, or to condemn him from a much too modern point of view. But even the spirit of the age cannot be pleaded in the defence of the evil-doer. In an age growing daily more liberal and enlightened there could be no justification for such odious measures of repression. Pombal sinned outrage- 96 Porttigticse Monarchy ously against the Portuguese virtue of liberty — so outrageously that he must be pilloried by all right-minded men. Not content with seeing his enemies butchered on the scaffold and their chil- dren torn from their mothers and cast into prison, he published a law making it treason to speak ill of the Minister! Even the trade of the delator became respectable, and the 400,000 crusados which were assigned as salary gave a chance to the professional delator. The pro- fession grew in reputation and emolument, and the most harmless words or thoughtless gestures were often twisted into acts of treason by the subtle chicanery of the official delator. And yet his name stands foremost in the calendar of some Portuguese democrats ! He is worshipped as a champion of liberty. He was a votary of liberty, whose liberty was the mere right of the man in power to oppress all others. And if there be one fact more than another in his life which affects his character, it is this revolting persecution of his own enemies that he believed were the enemies of the State. It has been asserted that Sully became his model. But the difference between the Minister of Joseph I and the Minister of Henry iv is a wide one. Pombal never had the amicable and M'^J' % it- / . \ ^-^r a; <4-- i\ Jh marquis c uixit MARQUIS DE POMBAL (1699-1782) Marquis de Pombal 97 reconciliatory disposition of a Sully. More eager than the King himself to avenge the wrongs of the Royal House, he was unable to see one layer of public opinion through another and act accordingly. "The great character given of this Minister," wrote Major William Dalrymple, ''seems to me to be not just ; to retain his power, which has been established by destruction and oppressive means, to enrich himself and gratify his vanity, are his springs of action ; the welfare of the State or happiness of the people are only secondary considerations ; he has rendered the tyranny complete, and destruction awaits him who dares oppose it." Such was the impartial opinion of an Englishman in his Travels through Spain and Portugal in 1774.^ But what remained of Pombal's twenty-seven years' rule ? It has been said that during his administration^ Portugal was steadily resuming a considerable position in the family of nations, and that the finances of the kingdom had recovered their equilibrium. ^ Vide Travels through Spain and Portugal in 1774, by Major William Dalrymple, p. 143. 2 The very plan of administration followed by Pombal was not his own. Very few know that the plan was supplied to him by Dom Luis da Cunha, a nobleman residing in Paris. Those who may doubt the veracity of this assertion have only to read the correspondence that passed between the two. 7 98 Portttgtiese Monarchy It is true that he aimed at improving the financial conditions of his country, that he tried to establish a national system of technical education, that he reorganised the army and decreed the abolition of slavery. But what of the measures and methods to enforce his policy ? His economic policy, which suggests how badly he copied the policy of Colbert, has, fortunately, almost unanimously been condemned as vicious in principle and disastrous in its results. Pombal, with tendencies for a system in which he might have most power of direction, circumscribed commerce in every branch by the erection of extensive monopolies. The Minister, in the name of the King, was a kind of first manufacturer, who compelled the nation to purchase her commodities at the price set by him. He decreed highly protectionist, at times prohibitive, custom-house reo^ulations with the intention of erectino^ in Portugal model manufactures and securing to her the production of such articles as she obtained from abroad — regulations which naturally en- gendered reprisals and seriously hindered the Portuguese commerce. As a necessary corollary to this madhouse legislation, he reinforced an ancient law existing in Portugal and issued an edict prohibiting gold and precious stones that Marquis de Pombal 99 were annually imported from Brazil and other colonies to be exported without his permission ! In the decree constituting the General Com- pany of Grand Para and Maranhao he pushed the monopoly to the farthest extreme, with the result that it put their trade in the most dis- tressing condition. The results were disastrous. The commerce of Brazil had greatly diminished. The trade of Pernambuco that, in 1759, employed forty-five ships, in the year 1772 employed only eigfhteen. His name is also linked with measures such as the foundation of the Oporto Wine Com- pany with the object of increasing the wine in- dustry, that only source of wealth of Portugal, which he put under the control of a monopoly ! But the statistics of exportation of wines during the years 1750 to 1763 tell the sad tale of Pombal's schemes that were intended to make the country wealthy. During the years 1750 to 1756 — that is to say, seven years before the monopoly began — the total exportation of wines amounted to 107,013 casks; and during the years 1757 to 1763, the first seven years of the monopoly, the number of casks exported was 107,095. In other words, Pombal, to make his country richer by 82 casks, thought it necessary to behead 13 men and 4 women, cast 25 persons into prison 100 Porttigtcese Monarchy for life, and banish 86 persons to different parts of the country. As might have been expected, his scheme failed in its objects. As if commercial welfare could be decreed or effected by an edict ! Such were the disastrous effects of Pombal's policy. As a matter^ of fact, the Minister of Joseph I had no economic knowledge whatever. ** He began everything at the wrong end," said Link of Pombal, in his travels. ** He was desirous at first," wrote the German, ** of estab- lishing manufactures everywhere ; then he changed his object to agriculture, and then to the fishery." His foreign policy was not in any way better than his economic policy. There is not a single alliance or negotiation that can be pointed out to have given Portugal the least advantage, and this notwithstanding the fact of his sending Ministers to all the Courts of Europe. But those representatives of the nation abroad, deprived of all initiative, were kept as mere automata upon whom Pombal might put the blame for all unsuccess as far as his dictatorial policy was concerned. Pombal, throughout his twenty-seven years of administration, had a distinct motive that guided all his acts — so distinct that, amidst the deviation Marquis de Pombal loi which the other motive forces produce in him, one can recognise it still. His greatest object was to exalt his Royal masters prerogatives. He wanted to make the King more absolute than ever, because he knew that the King in return would maintain him in power. He did not hang noblemen to avenge the people from the wrongs they suffered, but to consolidate the power of an absolute monarch. When he aimed at the equalisation of all classes by doing away with the distinction between the old and the new Chris- tians, by which the descendants of the converted Jews and Moors were given equal rights and con- sidered eligible for civil, military, and ecclesiastical offices ; when he decreed the abolition of slavery and attempted to free the Indians of Brazil — it was not to defend the people's liberties. He who had asserted by his acts that the people as a body politic had been annulled by the Crown cannot be said to have worked for the cause of liberalism. He was fashioning events in his own way, and at the same time impressing falsely the world with his so-called liberal measures ; and Pombal acted this part with as much detriment to his own reputation as prejudice to the advancement of liberalism. Such is the summary of Pombal's administra- 102 Porttcgtiese Monarchy tion, which rests on racks, gibbets, and dungeons. The opinion that has condemned him is not only confined to those whose obtuse prejudice is said to have denied to Pombal the fame he deserves. It has the support of men like Camillo Castello Branco, Latino Coelho, Luiz Soriano, Ramalho Ortigao, and Theophilo Braga, who may claim recognition as authoritative representatives of Portuguese historical criticism. The career of Pombal closed with the reign of Joseph I, who died in 1777. Pombal was tried, and the tribunal found him guilty. A NATIONS DISTRESS MEANWHILE, time was healing hurts, assuaging sorrows, wearing away anti- pathies created by Pombal's despotic rule, until the great movement of the Revolution in France began. The French movement had proved not so much the creation of a new order of things as the destruction of all that preceded- it. The doctrine of the sovereignty of the people as pre- sented by the French Revolution had threatened the very foundation of monarchies. John vi, then Prince Regent, in self-defence and, perhaps, with the object of weakening the French party in Portugal, which was formed in the time of the Succession War and was now strengthened by the French Revolution, exercised his power, which, however lawful, was not reconcilable with any ideas of liberty. He tried to suppress all movement of adherence to the principles pro- claimed by the French Revolutionaries. And he 104 Porttigaese Monarchy found in the famous PIna Manique, the Intendent of Police, once the right hand of the Marquis de Pombal, the man to carry his reactionary poHcy. Anybody who openly sympathised with the French movement was charo^ed with nothino^ less than seditious and subversive designs. The well- known poet, Bocage, and other men of letters were persecuted. Francisco Coelho da Silva, the father of Portuguese liberalism, was cast into prison. The Duke of Lafoes, the great patron of literature, was expelled from Court for having offered hospitality to Broussonet, the famous secretary of Necker. The French movement, however, resulted in atrocities, and the exhaustion which followed led to the usurpation of Napoleon. The reaction which Robespierre had begun was brought to a head by the military outrages of Napoleon. The aspirations of the great Corsican after universal empire seemed on the point of being realised. The eagles of Napoleon were planted in almost every capital of continental Europe. His great successes had entitled him to dictate terms to Germany, Italy, Prussia, Holland, and Switzerland. And now he had turned his attention to the monarchies of the Peninsula. But his designs against Portugal had been of very long standing. The dethrone- A Nation's Distress 105 ment of the Spanish House of Bourbon brought the matter to a head. Moreover, he looked upon Portugal in the same way as the Conven- tion, the Committee of Public Safety, and the Directory had done, namely, as a province of England. So, on the 12th of August 1807, Portugal was formally summoned, in the terms of the secret article of the Treaty of Tilsit, to close instantly her ports against England, to detain all English- men residing in Portugal, and to confiscate all English property within her dominions. In other words, she was asked to co-operate in Napoleon's continental system for the commercial ruin of England. The Prince Regent not having com- plied at once with all these demands, the French seized all Portuguese vessels harbouring in France and Holland. The Prince Regent, to wriggle out of difficulties in the best way his weak, vacil- lating nature permitted him, made some conces- sions to Napoleon, which, however, were speedily succeeded by violent reaction. He complied partly with Napoleon's demand, and at the same time informed England secretly that he was in that way appeasing Napoleon's wrath, and assured her that he was willing to pay an indemnity for the losses sustained by her. He was, perhaps, not 106 Portagacse Monarchy much to be blamed for what he did. One may query whether to comply with Napoleon's demands, or later, influenced by the counsels of the British Ambassador, to abandon the country — leaving the people to whom he owed the throne a prey to invasion by a tyrant — and embark for Brazil, was the more repre- hensible. Anyhow, Napoleon's vehemence of will and fixedness of purpose was not to be altered by a pusillanimous prince. The consequences of such a hide-and-seek policy were disastrous to Portugal. England took possession of Madeira, and threatened her ally with the occupation of the Portuguese possessions in India. And Napoleon had a treaty signed at Fontainebleau by Eugenio Isquierdo, a plenipotentiary of His Catholic Majesty, and Marshal Duroc in the name of the Emperor of the French, by which the partition of Portugal and the division of her colonies between the signatories of that instrument was agreed on. The provinces of Entre Douro and Minho were to be erected into a separate sovereignty for the King of Etruria with the title of King of Northern Lusitania, and Alemtejo and Algarve had been allotted to Godoy, who was to enjoy the title of Prince of the Algarves. And A Nation's Distress 107 to carry on this scheme of unblushing rapine Napoleon ordered, early in November of the year 1807, ^^e army of Gironde, commanded by Marshal Junot, to cross the Pyrenees and advance on Salamanca. Junot crossed the Portuguese frontier on the 20th of November, and ten days later he was entering Lisbon. The Royal emigrant, with his family and Court, had hardly left the Tagus on board an English ship for Brazil when Junot, who had formerly resided at the Court of Portugal as an ambassador from France, entered Lisbon and declared the Bragan9a family to have forfeited the throne. Meantime, the Spaniards were occupying the south of Portugal in the name of the Queen of Etruria. Junot entered Lisbon proclaiming the sole object of his invasion to be ** the emancipation of her government from the yoke of England and to enable it to assume the attitude of an independent power." Such was the bait with which Portugal was to be lured on to her ruin. But to Napoleon the occupation of Portugal was only a means of attaining his ulterior objects, an opportunity for iniquitous expoliation, an occasion for robbery. The nation, however, was at a loss to 108 Portagtiese Monarchy know in what light that proclamation was to be regarded. The Prince Regent, by pre- ferring to run away to a place of safety to sharing the misfortunes of his people, had dis- credited himself and the Portuguese monarchy before the eyes of the nation. The destiny of the country at this time possesses a mournful interest. It is a confession of political imbecility. People could not grasp the fact that Napoleon was incapable of withstanding the snares of greed and vanity, that his rule was in direct opposi- tion to national instincts. They saw in their oppressors the heroes of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena, and in their admiration they neglected to notice those factors which were carrying the nation to destruction. When the Portuguese saw themselves handed over from the Bragan^as to the Bonapartes, they offered no resistance to the invading armies. To a letter received by the Marquis of Alorna, Com- mander at Elvas, from the Spanish Governor of Badajoz, stating that ** A Spanish and French army is about to enter Portugal through your province. I wish to know whether they may expect to be received as friends or as enemies," the reply of that Marquis had been, "We are unable to entertain you as friends or to resist you as enemies." A Nation's Distress 109 . . . This is not all. The Council of Regency- had cravenly submitted to the French General. At Santarem a deputation of the Freemasons of Portugal in their democratic enthusiasm had welcomed Junot. The bodies politic in the nation had given to Junot's proclamation all its life and validity. To Portugal's great shame, even the three estates of the realm were to be assembled to proclaim the French King ! But the Portu- guese were to experience soon the iniquities of Napoleon's rule. Junot, to whom 600,000 francs had been assigned as Governor-General, had carried out his chiefs orders so well that he had not only raised 5,000,000 francs on his own account, but had the French flag hoisted up on the 13th December 1 807 in the fortress of St. George ! It was only then that a feeling of degradation, a desire to revenge their wrongs upon the French oppressors, sprung up in Portugal. And Junot, whose services had already won him the title of Duke of Abrantes, had to seek Napoleon's advice in a letter addressed to him on the 2 ist December ; and the "pretended friend" of the Portuguese, after remonstrating with his General for his neglect in not executing his orders **to disarm the in- habitants, send away the Portuguese troops, make severe examples, maintain an attitude of severity 110 Portagtiese Monarchy which will make you feared," ^ was writing to Junot, in his letter dated 7th January 1808, " In all this I do not see the man who has been trained in my school . . . shoot sixty people or so and take suitable measures . . . you are in a conquered country.'' But nevertheless there began in the provinces of Algarve, Alemtejo, Beira, and Extremadura a movement against the invaders. Balsemao was sent to seek help from England, and on the 1st of August, nine thousand men, commanded by Sir Arthur Wellesley, the famous conqueror of ^Assaye, that England had sent to help her ally, and who was to be the hero of Waterloo, landed at Buarcos. Eight thousand Portuguese under Bernardino Freire d' Andrade joined him. Soon after, thirteen thousand men under Spenser arrived. The battle of Roli^a was fought and won. On the 2 1 St of the month the great battle of Vimieiro was fought, and on the 30th Junot, after suffering defeats and reverses, was signing the Convention of Cintra, which broke the spell of French invinci- bility and forced the French General to give up all the fortresses in his possession and evacuate Portugal. 1 Vide Lettres Inedites de Napoleon /, An. VIII. — 181 5 — publiees par Leon Lecestre, vol. i. p. 1 36. A Nation's Distress iii The expulsion of Junot in 1808 was, however, followed by the invasion commanded by the Marquis of Soult — an invasion memorable for the shameless pillage of Oporto by the French troops ; but Soult was not able to face the com- bined strategy of a Wellington, a Beresford, and Francisco de Silveira Pinto, which compelled him to evacuate the country. Massena, who came after him, though he devastated the provinces of Beira and Extremadura, had also to dis- appear in disgraceful flight from the Portuguese territory. The days following the evacuation of Portugal by the French army were days that had thrown the very existence of the nation into doubt and impotence. The fall of Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo brought peace to Europe, but that peace found Portugal in the most distressing condition. Practically exhausted of her resources by a war, including three invasions by a devastating foe that had torn up her vineyards, trampled down her cornfields, pillaged the inhabitants, and robbed her abbeys and churches — a foe that, in his thirst for gold, had even desecrated the grave of a hapless queen ^ and wrenched off the slabs of ^ Dona Ignez de Castro, whose tragedy called forth the pathetic strains of Camoes. 112 Portagtiese Monarchy the graves of early kings of Portugal — and deprived of the best of her population that she had let her ally turn into soldiers to free Europe from the shadow of a French Empire, Portugal was a nation with her trade annihilated and her manufactures paralysed. She could evoke military glories achieved in the Peninsular War, but could hardly pay the loans imposed on her by the expenses of the war. The peace with France had cost seventeen millions of francs in addition to the ten millions extorted by Napoleon, and paper money had been issued to save the situation. This was the most fiery ordeal through which any nation could be doomed to pass. There was, of course, a feeling of anxiety as to how the Prince Regent's ministers in Portugal were going to work towards the relief of the nation. But they were quite paralytic. The misunderstanding of their duties was the more serious seeing that their utter inability had led Beresford to go to Brazil and obtain a decree by which the Prince Regent more or less delegated to him all the powers of government. He had been invested with an absolute power over the Portuguese army inde- pendently of any government in the kingdom. The consequences of this step were such as might A Nation's Distress ii3 inevitably be expected. Beresford possessed, in an eminent degree, all the qualities of a military man. The benefits which that British general conferred on the Portuguese army cannot be ignored ; but his discipline carried him too far. He took the reins of government into his hands and arrogated to himself the powers of a proconsul. He governed Portugal, now reduced to the situation of a mere dependency on the Brazils, in the name of a regency that had been appointed in the absence of John VI, then Prince Regent residing in Brazil. The period that follows the Peninsular War attests a continued interference of the English in the internal affairs of the country. The interference was such that, to quote the words of a well-known Portuguese historian, ** Portugal shook off the French yoke, but threw herself, as it were, into the arms of England." The peace of Paris in 1814 had been disastrous to Portugal. Spain had evaded the restitution of Olivenza which had been provided for by the Congress of Vienna, and Portugal had been made to restore some part of French Guiana taken from the French. But this interference was, it must be owned, the result of the passions 8 114 Portagtiese Monarchy and divisions of the Portuguese people, and was, perhaps, provoked by the weakness of the Portu- guese, who had let their rights slip from their hands ; but interference with a sovereign inde- pendent power cannot be justified. Sir Charles Stuart, afterwards Lord Stuart de Rothesay, the British Ambassador at Lisbon, and Marshal Beresford, for instance, were members of the Portuguese Regency, and **they," to quote Morse Stephens, ** ruled most despotically." ^ The English did not go knight-erranting to Portugal. It may reasonably be assumed that, if England went to help Portugal to free herself from the oppressive occupation by the French, it was not merely to extend help to her ally in distress, but to demonstrate in favour of a nation that was suffering for her fidelity to England. The reason, as Canning put it a few years later, in one of the many brilliant speeches that champion of liberty delivered in the House of Commons, was plain. ** Let us fly to the aid of Portugal," said the great statesman, "by whomsoever attacked, because it is our duty to do so, and let us cease that inter- ference where that duty ends. We go to Portugal not to rule, not to dictate, not to prescribe consti- ^ Vide Portugal, by Morse Stephens, " Story of the Nations Series," p. 412. A Nation's Distress 115 tutions, but to preserve the independence of our ally/' Such a state of affairs laid the foundation of a movement which circumstances developed into a political revolution. This was only natural. The Portuguese, conscious of the fact that their indifferentism in politics had led to a dissolution of political ties and, consequently, to the death of justice and liberty, vindicated their position of freedom and independence in a movement that was to overthrow all political tyrannies. The mistake committed in the past seemed suddenly discovered, and the activity to correct this mis- take explained. And the revolution of 1820 came as if to restore the old principles of the Portuguese Constitution, if by Constitution we understand ''the assemblage of those publicly acknowledged principles which are deemed funda- mental to the government of a people "^ — principles that had been forgotten through the ignorance of the people and the usurpation of the Crown. A nation that had sat in darkness had seen a light, and seemed to be eager to rise and live consistently with its political interests and with the genius of its ancient institutions — institutions where we can trace the progress of Portuguese ^ Vide Lieber's Political Ethics. 116 Portagtiesc Monarchy liberty from its lowest ebb to the highest to which it arrived, and which, in the best days of Portugal, were a check upon all political degradation. The history of her Cortes that, at Lamego,^ proclaimed the right of the nation in a spirit equal to that of Magna Charta, which came into existence seventy years later, speaks for the constitutional antiquity of the kingdom. The right with which the Cortes invested Dom Affonso Henriques as the first King of Portugal, deposed Dom Sancho ii, raised the Duke de Bragan^a under the title of John iv, and again sanctioned the deposition of Dom Affonso vi and and conferred the Regency on his brother, Dom Pedro II, not only acknowledges, in the most unequivocal manner, the sovereignty of the Portuguese people, but shows the Cortes as an institution grown out of the healthy action of a people and developed along with the state of society. And the principles which they success- fully assumed or relinquished go to prove that they were the product of all the latent forces ot the national life and character. They did not ^ Alexandre Herculano, the Portuguese historian, ridicules the existence of the first meeting of the Cortes at Lamego. It is assumed that the original record does not exist. England does not possess the original of her own Magna Charta, nevertheless every Englishman is proud of it. A Nation's Distress ii7 only afford an opportunity of bringing before the Crown their petition for redress and assistance, but established the constitutional principle that the three states of the realm chosen to represent the three orders of the community — if it is **the spirit and purpose rather than the form or name of institutions to be regarded the essence of representation " ^ — had a decided voice in the government of the country. They were not only a consultative but also a legislative body, and the statutes which were framed in those Cortes, which no Royal Alvara could supersede, were subsequently embodied in the '* Ordena96es do Reino" that were the law of the country. In the Chronica of Duarte Nunes de Leao we find a page that points to one of her many triumphs. '* The King," writes the Chronicler of the Cortes which assembled in the year 1352, "went from Lisbon to Cintra to hunt, and remained nearly a month at a time, when the Council was busy discussing matters of great importance respecting the government of the kingdom. When he returned, one of the members, in the name of the rest, addressed him thus : * Sir, you ought to amend the life you lead, and remember that you were given to us as a king in order to govern ^ Vide Political Studies^ by Hon. Georgia Brodrick. 118 Porttigtiese Monarchy us ; and for this reason we give you our tribute and maintain you in honour, whilst you follow the chase as an occupation and the government of your kingdom as a pastime ; whereas, it is certain that God will not demand of you the number of boars and stags you have killed, but rather of the complaints which you have not heard and the duties you have not performed. For, when we are treating of matters of the highest importance, you have absented yourself from the Council in which you were so necessary, and have gone to the chase, leaving us here idle for so many days waiting for you. Reform, or, if not, we will seek another king who may govern us with justice, and not abandon the government of his subjects for the pursuit after wild beasts.' " Such was the language addressed in the old days, by the representatives of the people, to a king. Several causes, however, worked together to bring about the state of affairs which compelled the nation to neglect their political rights, and not ensure the gradual growth of constitutional ideas and the development of a respect for the rights of the people. Foremost among these causes was that, at the accession of the Bragan^a family, there was never established any constitution of govern- ment. Although, when John iv was acclaimed A Nation's Distress ii9 King, the Cortes that had met for the purpose of recording the Royal oath declared to him that ** they delivered the throne over to him in order to rid the country of the bad government of Castille," they looked too much upon the exalta- tion of the Crown, and deprived themselves of their own legislative rights. The Bragan^a family, on the other hand, was so wealthy, that besides its own revenue, it could dispose of the revenues belonging to several orders of knighthood. All this, of course, enabled the monarchy to dispense with the Cortes. Had the Cortes continued to assemble, the revolution of 1820 would therefore not have occurred. The revolution was now an accomplished fact. In April 1820 Marshal Beresford had sailed for Brazil. The secret society known as the **Synedrio" had done its work before his return, which was not till the following October. On the 23rd August 1820, Oporto raised the Constitutional cry. The proclamation, signed by Colonel Sepulveda, the soul of this movement, and Lieut. -Colonel Cabreira, was read to the regiments there stationed, and a *' Junta" was forthwith appointed and charged with the govern- ment of the country till the meeting of the Cortes. Three weeks later, Lisbon seconded the movement. 120 Porttigaese Monarchy In less than twenty days the troops and people of three provinces of the North and even part of Extremadura had adhered to the movement of Oporto. The energetic efforts of the Portuguese to regain their Constitutional rights were such that the Regency, governing the country in the absence of the King, that had, on the 29th August, con- demned the Oporto movement, stigmatising those who took part in it with the name of "rebels," reminding the insurgents that *'the King alone could convoke the Cortes," was, on the ist September, issuing a proclamation to the effect that the Regency ** had resolved, in the name of the King our Lord, to convoke the Cortes, ap- pointing immediately a committee for the purpose of proceeding with the arrangements necessary for the prompt assembling of the same." The Regency, however, ceased to exist, and a com- plete change was prepared in the Portuguese Constitution, the Spanish Constitution of 181 2 being provisionally adopted — a Constitution bad in itself, and worse by the reason of its incom- patibility with the character of the nation, which a better experience would have probably rejected. The fact deserves mention, however, that the Portuguese, when they insisted on the repre- A Nation's Distress 121 sentative rights of the nation, professed loyalty to the King and the Portuguese monarchy. Of this revolution we may therefore say what Lord Erskine said of the first English revolution — ** Monarchy was only suspended, not abolished." VI THE STRUGGLE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY THROUGH all this feverish history there begins in Portugal a period in politics of unusual interest and complexity. *' Every change," says Machiavelli, 'Mays the foundation of another," and this observation is profound. John VI, who, at the time of the French invasion of the Peninsula, had passed over with his Court to Brazil, had now, after nominating his eldest son, Dom Pedro, Regent of Brazil, and having appointed the Conde dos Arcos his son's Prime Minister, returned to Portugal. He arrived on the 3rd July 182 1. The very next day he had solemnly sworn before the Cortes "to observe and cause to be observed the basis of the Con- stitution decreed by the general, extraordinary, and constituent Cortes of the Portuguese nation, and the Constitution which they shall make." Soon after, the Cortes had obtained his sanction to a law for the protection of the liberty of the The Struggle lor Liberty 123 press and the prevention of the abuses of the press. Meantime, Brazil had refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of the mother country. Long before that, the Conde dos Arcos, removed by the Brazilians from his post, had arrived as a prisoner in Europe. The reason of all this was evident enough. John vi, when he had sought refuge in that Portuguese dependency, had, on the death of his mother, issued a decree declaring Brazil an integral part of the kingdom, and raising the '' State of Brazil " to the dignity, pre-eminence, and title of a kingdom. Embassies had been re- ceived, and that ancient Portuguese colony had been, by a royal decree, admitted into diplomatic relationship. Her ports, which once the Portu- guese, to push their monopoly, had closed against other nations, had, by a decree of John vi, been opened to the commerce of the world. The printing-press had been introduced, learning en- couraged, and foreign settlers welcomed to the shores. It was of course to be expected that the Portuguese would admit the Brazilians to a direct share in the legislature without altogether destroying the character of the Cortes. Such a duty was all the more incumbent on the Cortes 124 Porttigtiese Monarchy because the establishment of the Portuguese Court in Rio de Janeiro during the first twenty years of the nineteenth century had destroyed the old colonial system. But the Portuguese began, on the return of their King, to regard the Brazilians with jealousy and distrust. They thought they could afford to despise the Brazilian aspirations. Instead of drawing closer together the ties which kindred and common interest might have formed between the two nations, their presumption and incapability limited their horizon to their immediate and individual interests. They still thought that the true vocation of Brazil was to be a refuge for the Portuguese outcasts and adventurers who, in ancient days, had flocked there in search of a living and committed all those crimes and out- rages so boldly denounced by the great Father Antonio Vieyra ; and with the savage purpose of bringing back Brazil to its former state of absolute dependence, and keeping the country under the oppressive monopoly under which it had remained so long, an insulting decree was passed in the Cortes, ordering the Prince Dom Pedro to come to Europe, and abolishing the Royal Tribunals at Rio de Janeiro. A decree by which ** Brazil should be divided into provincial governments subordinate to the Government at Lisbon, the The Straggle for Liberty 125 superior tribunals to be suppressed, and the Prince Regent to return to Lisbon, and thence be sent to France and England accompanied by such attendants as the Cortes might appoint for him." Naturally enough, this disregard of the feelings of the Brazilians accelerated the separa- tist tendencies of Brazil. They noted and felt this insult, and saw the reins of power passing into the hands of men who had a set of primary interests which were peculiar to themselves, and in which Brazil was not concerned ; and to defend their own interests against the aggressive selfishness of the mother country Brazil, in spite of the large forces sent by the Portuguese to Bahia, declared her independence in 1822, in- vesting Dom Pedro with the title of Emperor of Brazil ; and a few years later John vi, accepting the offer of England, had to settle the dispute through the agency of Sir Charles Stuart, a British Minister who was sent as Portuguese Plenipotentiary to Rio de Janeiro with full power to sign the Treaty of Separation and Independence. No doubt a serious blow had been given to the prestige of Portugal. The whole situation was exceptional, and history had never shown such an example. By this movement, which 126 Portuguese Monarchy secured to Brazil the sympathy and respect of every civilised country, the Brazilians destroyed a system of wholesale political jobbery without breaking entirely with the glorious traditions of their country. '' Brazil wishes to have the same king, but does not choose to have masters in the deputies of the Congress of Lisbon. Brazil desires her independence, strengthened by a well- understood union with Portugal — she wishes, in short, that they should form two great families, governed by their own laws, pursuing their own respective interests, obedient to the same chief." These were the words of the Brazilian Manifesto published twenty days before the separation of Brazil from the Crown of Portugal was announced. It was therefore a movement exacting from the mother country the performance of her duties ; and, if anything can give this movement its true character, it was, to quote a Brazilian writer, **the descendant of a long line of European monarchs who inaugurated the movement which severed the last and most faithful of the great divisions of South America from Transatlantic rule." But the immediate possibilities of drawing the two countries together were also at an end. All initiative on the part of the new Brazilian The Straggle for Liberty 127 Emperor was repressed by the events that were taking place in Portugal. His family ties had pleaded in favour of his father, and to expect Dom Pedro to remain indifferent to the violent change that had taken place in Portugal is com- pletely to misunderstand human nature. No king had ever been in a more deplorable con- dition than that in which John vi was now placed. He met with the opposition of the Queen, Dona Carlota Joaquina — who had refused to swear to the New Constitution on the ground that ** she would not take an oath, that she had made a promise never to swear either for good or evil during her life " — and of his younger son, Dom Miguel, who were opposed to Constitutional ideas. All around him there had been signs of a violent reaction. Francisco Silveira, Count of Amarantes, had raised a " pronunciamento " against the Constitution of 1822 — a Constitution which, to quote Rebello da Silva, ** when it left the hands of its authors, was already diseased with political consumption, of which it died suddenly in the following year." John vi, accord- ingly, had declared the Constitution abrogated, and placed his confidence on Count Palmella, a great politician who had been Plenipotentiary to the Congress of Verona, bidding him to 128 Porttigtiese Monarchy draw up a Constitution on the British model, which the King had been longing to grant in spite of the numerous obstacles put in the way by the Court of Madrid and the French Cabinet. The Absolutist party, however, would hear of no Constitutional monarchy, and the violence of their movement exceeded all limits. Dom Miguel, quite as little restrained by law as by honour, revolted against his own father. Placing himself at the head of all the troops of the capital, he surrounded the Royal Palace. The Marquis de Loul6, the Kings greatest friend, who held liberal opinions, was assassinated shortly before the conspiracy broke out. Palmella was imprisoned in the Tower of Belem, and such was the danger of the King's position that John vi was an exile in his dominions. The King of Portugal had to take refuge on board the Windsor Castle, a British man-of-war in the Tagus, where he established for a time his seat of government. From there the King had to address a proclamation to the nation condemning the acts of his son, Dom Miguel, who, ''drawn aside by sinister aspirations and deceived by perfidious counsels, had committed acts which, if just and necessary, should have emanated from The Struggle for Liberty 129 my sovereign authority alone," ^ and dismiss- ing the Infante Dom Miguel from the command- in-chief of the army with which he had been invested. But the period of violence soon passed away. The diplomatic body, especially the French Ambassador, M. Hyde de Neuville, had exerted its influence in favour of the King — an interference that the King gratefully acknow- ledged by conferring the titles of Count of Bemposta on Baron Hyde de Neuville and the title of Count of Cacilhas and a domain of the Crown for three generations on Sir Edward Thornton, the British Minister in Lisbon. The revolt was sternly suppressed, and the rowdy youth, who, after the historical interview on board the Windsor Castle^ had, in a letter to his father, acknowledged that *'he had been led to commit all errors by the want of ex- perience and reflection natural to youth," was banished from the kingdom — but banished only to prepare himself, under the Machiavellian Metternich, for further attempts to check all Constitutional development in Portugal. John VI died on the loth March 1826, and by 1 Vide " Proclamation of the King of Portugal to the Nation," given on board the English ship, Windsor Castle^ in the roadstead of the Tagus, 9th May 1824. 9 130 Portagtiese Monarchy the Royal Decree of the 6th March of that same year, his daughter, Infanta Dona Isabel Maria, was appointed Regent, with assistance of a Council, till *' the legitimate heir and successor to the Crown should make other provisions in this respect." ^ Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, who was the first-born of John vi, and therefore the lawful heir to the throne, had thus been called to decide on the succession to the Crown of Portugal. History had once more repeated itself. In the days gone by. King Affonso iii, whilst a Sovereign Count over the States of Boulogne in France, had also been King of Portugal on the deposition of King Sancho ii. King Affonso v, when proclaimed King of Castille and Leon, had not forfeited his rights in his own country. King Manuel, when married to the Princess Isabel, had governed the kingdoms of Castille, Leon, and Aragon without losing his inviolable rights to the Portuguese Crown ; and now Dom Pedro, who had accepted the title of Emperor of Brazil, had, on the death of his father, to abdicate the Crown of Portugal in favour of his eldest daughter, Dona Maria de Gloria. ** It being incompatible with the interests of the empire of Brazil and with those of the ^ Vide Gazeta de Lisboa^ 7 de Margo 1826. The Straggle for Liberty i3i kingdom of Portugal that I should continue to be King of Portugal and the Algarves and their dominions," to quote the words of Dom Pedro in the Act of Abdication given at the Palace at Rio de Janeiro on the 2nd May 1826, the Emperor of Brazil had abdicated in favour of his daughter, a child of seven years, and accom- panied the abdication with the grant of a free Constitutional Charter. But a great and sudden turn In affairs was at hand. The Charter granted by Dom Pedro had been recognised by all foreign powers, with the exception of Spain, as proceeding from a legitimate authority. Spain, In her endeavour to destroy the Charter that she thought dangerous to the interests of her own internal politics, dis- played a rancorous and incurable hostility. She had sheltered all the Portuguese rebels that, under the command of Brigadier - General Magessi, and later under Brigadier - General Montealegre, fled Into her territories. When Portugal, on the defection of her Minister, Gomes, who had refused to take oath to the Charter and joined the rebels, was left without a repre- sentative at the Court of Madrid, the Portuguese Government had despatched the Marquis of Villa Real as Plenipotentiary to Madrid, but 132 Portagtaese Monarchy the Spanish Government had refused to acknow- ledge his official character. The real crisis, however, was yet to come ; and it came with the decree of 3rd of July 1827, signed by Dom Pedro, appointing Dom Miguel Regent that "he might govern the country conformably with the Charter." The Emperor of Brazil had already, when he granted the Charter, made it a condition that his daughter should marry her penitent uncle, Dom Miguel, who was to swear that he would observe the Constitution. Dom Pedro was, of course, desirous of making it believed that everything emanated from himself, and the decree appointing his brother Regent of Portugal was one of the many instances which rendered the Ministers in Portugal less self-confident. He had yielded to the influences of Baron Neuman, who had been sent from Vienna to Rio de Janeiro, but the Emperor's intentions may have been innocent. Dom Pedro perhaps hoped to reconcile the factions which divided Portugal. But the effects of that measure were most pernicious. When he signed that decree, little could he have suspected that he was plunging the country into revolution and anarchy. Dom Miguel, who had identified himself with the party which had the Marquis de The Struggle for Liberty 133 Chaves for its leader, who was soon to return from Spain, where he had fled — a party which was opposed to liberty in Portugal and the inde- pendence of Brazil — was by nature averse to all Constitutional government. Ambitious of the throne, he directed all his efforts to secure that end. A tool in the hands of his mother, Dona Carlota Joaquina, who had carried on her intrigues in the secrecy of the Palace of Queluz, no sooner was he made Regent than he dismissed his Constitutional Ministers and, at a time when a new and different fundamental law ruled the monarchy, summoned the old Cortes which were presided over by the Bishop of Vizeu, who un- scrupulously offered Dom Miguel the throne of Portugal ; and Dom Miguel, who had waived all his claims by accepting the throne in the right of his niece, assumed, on the nth July of the year 1828, the title of King of Portugal. He who was ** determined to maintain Inviolate the laws of the kingdom and the institutions legally granted by our august brother, and which we have all sworn to observe and cause to be observed," and fulfil all that his brother expected of him in appointing him " his lieutenant and Regent In these kingdoms — to govern them according to what Is prescribed in the Constitutional Charter " — to quote his words 134 Portuguese Monarchy of declaration made through the letter he wrote from Vienna to his sister, had now usurped the throne of Portugal ! The story of his career cannot, therefore, be made more shameful than truth itself displays it. Once Dom Miguel fancied himself King, he immediately exiled the whole Constitutional Party. He thought it necessary for his own safety to drive away Palmella, Saldanha, Sampaio, and Villa Flor, and compel them to take refuge in England. He cast 4000 persons into the dungeons of the Limoeiro, S. Juliao, and Belem for political offences, and sequestrated their goods and possessions. Most of these victims had taken part in the Oporto insurrection, when Dom Pedro and the Charter were proclaimed by the garrisons of Oporto, which, with other garrisons, had marched against Oporto. When defeated some had taken refuge in Spain, and others embarked for Great Britain. Those of them who were left behind were now suffering at the hands of Telles Jordao and Bastos, the instru- ments of Dom Miguel's tyranny. Acting in contradiction to his promises made in Vienna and London, where he had been before assuming the Regency, Dom Miguel had usurped the throne of Portugal. But his supporters, as if The Struggle for Liberty i35 to clear him from the imputation of dishonesty, had taken a ** national vote" urging Dom Miguel to ascend the throne — the most infamous docu- ment that ever was drawn up to delude European nations. His partisans sank so low as to take even harlots to sign the lists kept in the Muni- cipal Chamber of Lisbon ! They thought as long as they could command a great number of signa- tures, Dom Miguel's honour was unassailable. The spirit of absolutism was uppermost, and was already exhibiting both its strength and its weakness. The Duke of Lafoes had invited the Portuguese nobility to support this nefarious usurpation, and some of the most noble families of the kingdom had answered to his appeal. But the nation was not going to accept, with something of the resignation of the Moslem, the despotic rule of Dom Miguel de Bragan^a. His despotism was such that by a decree he had altered all the sentences of banishment for political crimes into death. The persecutions carried on by means of his special commissions will never absolve him from the ignominy which will remain attached to his name. Through his tyranny the Chartist and Radical Parties, who respectively supported the Charter of 1826 and the Constitution of 1822, had almost sunk their 136 Portagtiese Monarchy differences to oppose him. This prince had thrown the country into such a confusion that the English Minister, Lamb, who had been sent to substitute A court, had refused payment of the loan of ;^5o,ooo made to Dom Miguel in London under the guarantee of the English Government, because the English Minister feared its insecurity. Dom Miguel was indeed responsible for a situation that fully justified the w^ords of an hon. member of the House of Commons who, on the loth March 1830, referring to the affairs of Portugal, said : *' He looked with astonishment at the character of D. Miguel. It was astonishing that so young a man could have accomplished so much wickedness in so short a time ; for at the early age of six-and- twenty this man, this D. Miguel, had perpetrated every crime and dis- played every vice which historical truth or historical fiction had attributed to the most sanguinary monsters that ever w^aded through the blood of innocent people in the pursuit of their ambitious objects. (Hear, hear.) It was to be hoped that he would finish a life of infamy by a death of violence." The atrocities of Dom Miguel and the fanaticism of the Absolutist movement, however, aggravated the struggle for Constitutional liberty. It produced The Struggle for Liberty i37 an effervescence in the people which culminated in the civil wars between the subjects of Queen Dona Maria ii and the partisans of her uncle, Dom Miguel — wars that shed in torrents the blood of the nation and inoculated Portuguese society with germs of strife and discord. But if the passions of the combatants in those struggles for liberty were fierce, the issues at stake were not less momentous. A Constitution which was sent to Portugal from Brazil with its merits alone to support it was bound to produce those great civil wars. The Portuguese Liberals, most of them in- fluenced by the doctrines proclaimed by the French Revolution of 1789, dealt, not with con- crete realities, but with abstract theories of parlia- mentary government. This had the widest and the most mischievous operation. It had caused unintentionally confused notions about Constitu- tional liberty in the popular mind, with the result that it multiplied rapidly in number and power Dom Miguel's supporters belonging to the nobility and the higher clergy. There was yet another ground of uneasiness which must needs have confronted those who were fighting for the Constitutional cause. The Portuguese Liberals had met with a decided 138 Portttgtiese Monarchy foreign opposition to their cause, and to their great misfortune Canning, the great champion of Hberty, was dead, and his policy of keeping England aloof from the machinations of those who were interested in the so-called Holy Alliance had not been followed by his successor. The Duke of Wellington had been in power after Canning's death, Lord Dudley had been substituted by Lord Aberdeen, and the British Cabinet had disappointed the Portuguese Con- stitutionists by protecting the claims of the Portuguese usurper. Dom Pedro's arrival from Brazil, therefore, occupied the attention of the nation to the exclusion of everything else. The personal prestige of the giver of the Constitution, though it had nothing to do with the ultimate dis- posal of things, acted nevertheless powerfully to strengthen the cause of the Constitution in Portugal. When informed of his brother's doings in Portugal, Dom Pedro had issued from Rio de Janeiro a proclamation, dated the 25th July 1828, urging the Portuguese to stand by their Constitu- tional rights, and water, if necessary, the tree of liberty with their blood. That proclamation had animated the Portuguese Constitutionalists. He left Brazil in July 1832, and arrived with an The Struggle for Liberty 139 army of 7500 men at Oporto to uphold the rights of his daughter against his brother, who had usurped the throne. The island of Terceira, where, in March 1830, a Regency consisting of Palmella, Villa Flor, and Guerreiro had been installed, had remained loyal to Dom Pedro's daughter. It was from there that the operations were directed against Dom Miguel and his supporters. Thus the memor- able siege of Oporto was followed by the Duke de Saldanha's victory over General Bourmont, who was engaged by Dom Miguel to command his forces. Saldanha defeated Dom Miguel's partisans at Torres Novas and Alamoster, Napier and Sa de Bandeira reduced the provinces of Beira and Alemtejo respectively, and Dom Miguel was finally compelled to sign the Convention of Evora Monte, by which he was given a pension of ;^ 1 5,000 a year on condition of leaving Portugal for ever ; and the Cortes, in the name of the nation, had to ''declare him and his heirs inelig- ible to the throne and forbid him to return to Portugal under penalty of death." Thus came to an end the six years of Dom Miguel's usurpation, which fomented bitter and sanguinary animosities, and which plunged the 140 Porttigtiese Monarchy nation in despair — a usurpation against which, in England, Mackintosh and Viscount Palmerston, the leaders of the Liberal Party, and, in France, Benjamin Constant Lafayette and Lamarque raised in their Parliaments a voice of protest. It was so atrocious that it even called forth the following lines from Victor Hugo in his Leaves of Autumn : — " Quand Lisbonne jadis belle et toujours en fete Pend au gibet, les pieds de Miguel sur sa t6te." Yet the whole responsibility for this abnormal state of affairs does not rest with Dom Miguel alone. It has to be shared by King Ferdinand vii of Spain, who, following blindly the advice of Calomarde, his Minister, and fearing the Portuguese Liberal movement might influence his own subjects, had worked with other ac- complices in Prince Metternich's machinations for the destruction of the Portuguese Consti- tutional Charter, which was the ** apple of discord in the concert of the soi-disant Holy Alliance." ^ ^ Vide Gervinus, Geschichte dcs neunz : Jahrh : VII ILLUSIVE HOPES ONCE the period of violence had passed away, it was only natural that it should be attended by mighty results. Portugal had been endowed by a Charter which had drawn into its life the most stimulating influences of the doctrine of Bentham with such wide diffusion of political rights, coupled with every guarantee for personal liberty, that any Liberal would have hailed it as the practical realisation of Montesquieu's political ideals. But political welfare cannot be decreed or effected by the grant of a Charter. The value of a Constitution lies in its having its foundation in the strong moral and political convictions of a free people, and whenever that ceases to be the fact, the Constitution cannot but be blank parchment. The Portuguese Liberals, however, proved themselves incapable of exercising a mighty and decisive influence in the politics of the country. Liberalism was seen to be in their case the mere X41 142 Portagtiese Monarchy right of the dominant element to crush all those who could not be conciliated. No sooner were the great wars over than some of the Portuguese demagogues, lacking the spirit of tolerance which ought to animate all men in a Constitutional country, supposed it a necessary- security for their political liberties that Dom Pedro should have his brother, Dom Miguel, executed; and for refusing to be a party to this, these so- called Liberals fiercely assailed the giver of the Constitution with weapons which they of all people should have been the last to use. Dom Pedro died at the Palace of Queluz six days after the Queen was declared of age. In the reign of Dona Maria ii, who was only fifteen when she ascended the throne, the Portuguese carried on their party struggles with such violence that they disturbed all sources of domestic tranquillity. The history of the twenty years of that reign is the history of party wrang- lings and a flagrant example of the inadequacy of a Constitutional system to answer all the demands of the Portuguese demagogues. The political character of the reign of Queen Maria ii was, in short, determined by the fact that the majority of the Portuguese had no opinions of their own but merely echoed opinions, and were the natural prey Illusive Hopes 143 of the Portuguese demagogues, who, In their turn, had vague ideas of political liberty and lacked experience. During that period Portugal passed through one of the most trying crises of her history, which has influenced her political development to the present time. Since the famous emigration of 1828-32, when, on the 3rd July 1828, out of 12,000 exiles that left Oporto 2868 embarked at Corunna and Ferrol on their way to England, the great Constitutional Party had split into two groups. These had degenerated into mere factions, and the groups had ceased to represent any principles. When the great Constitutional struggle was over, the two groups were led, one by the Marquis de Palmella, and the other by the Duke de Saldanha, the latter being then in the opposition. In 1834 we find these two groups engaged in the great electioneering campaign, which was full of faction and passion ; and the competing parties, careless of honesty or justification of the means, directed all their energies to attain power. The throne being without an heir, the Queen consented^ to marry. She married, in January 1835, the Duke of Leuchtenberg, second son of Eugene de Beauharnals by Princess Augusta of Bavaria, who, to her misfortune, died within two 144 Portttgtiese Monarchy months. Pressed by the nation, she married, a year after, Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. But the nomination of Prince Ferdinand to the post of Commander-in-Chief was the theme of discussion in the Parliament that had already refused the chief command of the army to the Queen's first husband. The onslaught made by the opposition on the Government and the Crown proved strongly that the exigencies of parlia- mentary life in those days needed things to fight over, not things to do. Almost a session was wasted in fierce controversies over that question, when so many important problems affecting the future of the country were pressing for immediate solution. Meantime, the politicians, with views and passions utterly irreconcilable, had suffered their prejudices to run riot with their judgment. This rancorous hostility manifested itself in the long series of pronunciamentos that characterised the first period of democracy, which began with the famous revolution of September 1836, when Francisco Soares da Caldeira, encouraged by the military insurrection in Spain in the beginning of August, raised in Lisbon the cry for the abolition of the Charter and the re-establishment of the Constitution of 1822 resembling the Cadiz Illusive Hopes 145 Constitution. That pronunciamento, which was followed by violent struggles, resulted in the temporary adoption of the New Constitution of 1838, which was no other but that of 1822. And it gave rise to the two parties — parties that had to play an important part in the history of the country : the Setembristas , who, having drawn their inspiration from the theories of the first French Revolution, were extremely democratic in their views, and supported the Liberal Constitution of 1838 ; and the Cartistas, with moderate and Conservative views, who insisted upon the pre- rogatives of a sovereign, an hereditary chamber, and certain property qualifications in case of Members of Parliament. But the motives which led the leaders of the revolution of September ** were not the merits of either of the two Constitutions,"^ as Count of Taipa, one of the leaders of that movement, declared some time after in the Cortes. The Charter had been abused to the full extent of all its powers by the ministry in power. A spirit of faction had prevailed in every act of the Government. The finances were tottering on the verge of bankruptcy. The Bank of Lisbon had already given notice that they would no ^ Vide Lettre addresse au Comte Goblet d* Alviella^ p. lo. 10 146 Porttcgtiese Monarchy longer receive paper money at eighty, i.e. at twenty per cent, discount. The Minister of Finance had been at a loss how to raise, immediately, about ;^2, 100,000 to pay the dividends on the foreign and domestic debt to the 30th June of that year. The pay of the Army and Navy, as well as civilians in Government service, was in arrears. All this served the purposes of the political agitators. They employed all means to inflame the passions of the mob, and thus subverted a political oligarchy whose corrupt and oppressive system, let it be said, was not in any way com- patible with the genius of the Charter. The period that followed the revolution of September was a period of democracy, but of democracy in its worst form. Its symptoms manifested themselves in a general disposition to think ill of all the actions of men in power, a delight for heaping dirt upon the Queen and her supporters. Her name was dragged into party politics. Insinuations, the most odious and repugnant to the feelings of a woman, were made about her ; ribald songs and caricatures were thrust into the hands of the masses, the public threshing out of every subject to its last shreds. This political insecurity, which retarded all legislative enterprise, continued for some years. Illttsive Hopes 147 In 1842, however, Costa Cabral, who, three years later, was created Count of Thomar, declared himself for the Charter of 1826, and he was supported by the Duke of Terceira, who Issued a pronunciamento in Lisbon in favour of that Charter. No sooner had Costa Cabral attained power than he set his face resolutely against empty demagogism and disorder. But, in his attempt to do battle against the danger threaten- ing the stability of the monarchy, he miscalculated the direction of public opinion. Hot in his temper and harsh to his opponents, in his efforts to muzzle the demagogue he tampered with public liberties. The opposition gained by it. A clamour was raised on the ground that Cabral was attempting to smother the freedom of the people to make the Queen absolute ; and the nation, excited to madness, thinking it was no longer a contest between the competing parties, but a trial of strength between the throne and the people, sternly protested against Cabral's administration. This movement, which resulted in many deeds of violence, was followed by the revolt known as the war of Maria da Fonte, or *' Patulea " — a name applied to the rebels as signifying an armed mob — a movement that made a great havoc of the lives and principles of many individuals. In 148 Porttigttesc Monarchy May 1846 Cabral was driven from power, and he fled in disguise to Spain. In the meantime the Septembrists and the Chartists, in the heat of conflict, thinking only of immediate party victories, never of remote issues, had lost sight of the partisans of Dom Miguel, who were dexterously availing themselves of every opportunity to make capital out of the situation created by the two parties. This dis- tressing state of affairs made it necessary, in 1847, for Saldanha to demand of England and Spain, in conformity with the terms of the Quadruple Alliance, an armed intervention in the internal affairs of the country. Thus a remedy, distasteful enough In happier circumstances, had to be applied for the suppression of disorder. On the 29th June 1847, ^he Convention of Granldo was signed, and Queen Maria 11 maintained Saldanha in power. But Saldanha, who, when entrusted with the government was a Cartista, changed his political opinions and turned a Setembrlsta. It has been said that Saldanha preferred personal ambitions to old ties of political association and to his own avowed political opinions. But it is difficult to ascertain the motives of such a man as Saldanha (for, to quote Soriano, " were It not for him the Charter might have fallen to the c c c c' stve H COSTA CABRAL, COUNT OF THOMAR, PRIME MINISTER (1839-1851) Illusive Hopes 149 ground "), and to tell exactly where his patriotism ended and personal ambition stepped in. In 1849, however, Cabral returned to active political life, and succeeded in bringing about Saldanha's resignation in June of that year. Cabral's rise naturally caused great excitement throughout the country. The excitement was such that a British Minister in Lisbon went so far as to suggest to the Queen the dismissal of Cabral, but Queen Maria ii did not yield to the influence of Sir Hamilton Seymour. But Saldanha, who was all fire and hope, gave the sign of alarm by raising a revolutionary move- ment at Cintra on the 7th April 185 1. After organising a successful complot that drove Cabral, his greatest and personal foe, from power in ignominy, and compelled him to take refuge on board an English vessel, Saldanha entered Lisbon triumphantly on the 15th May. At this time, and in these circumstances, Saldanha proclaimed himself Commander-in-Chief of the Army and assumed dictatorship, which led to that movement of *' Regeneration," as it was named, when all parties sunk differences and rallied enthusiastically to the support of a policy that was to shape the future of the Parliament which had been an evil almost organic in the 150 Porttigtcese Monarchy working of the Constitution. The dictatorship afforded Saldanha's ministry an opportunity of ending a financial situation that could subsist no longer and of promoting the welfare of the people. Saldanha, however, was fortunate in having in his ministry a man like Rodrigo da Fonseca Magalhaes, who threw himself with all his energy into that movement of political regeneration in the hope of advancing the Constitutional cause. It was he who brought about the change that resulted in the passing, in the Cortes specially assembled for that purpose, of the celebrated '*Acto Addicional " of 1852, which may be said to have marked the close of the epoch of pro- nunciamentos — the main features of that Act being a complete change in the electoral system, substitution of the indirect voting by the direct, international treaties to be submitted to the approval of Parliament, creation of representative municipalities, and abolition of capital punishment for political crimes. Ever since that Act was passed, the Charter, which had been altered by another additional Act of 1885 and by the laws of 1895, ^^^ been the fundamental law of the Portuguese monarchy. Parliamentary government had hardly begun to settle down in Portugal into regular working Illtisive Hopes isi order when Queen Maria ii died on the 15th November 1853, at the age of thirty-four, having undergone twenty years of unparalleled humilia- tions at the hands of her politicians, whose unchivalrous treatment must have sunk deep into the heart of that woman. On her death the King Consort assumed the Regency until his eldest son, Dom Pedro v, came of age and was proclaimed King on the i6th September 1855. VIII TURN OF THE TIDE THE events which marked the commence- ment of Dom Pedro v's reign were the most distressing of modern times. Lisbon had witnessed the ravages of the cholera morbus and the yellow fever in the very heart of the city. In little less than four months 15,000 people were attacked and 5000 had fallen victims to it. But the historical interest of these sad events centres round the young monarch, on whom devolved the duty of organising the work to relieve the suffer- ings of a miserable and desperate people dying of plague. To Dom Pedro v the vocation of a king must have been full of meaning as he tramped the streets of Lisbon to visit his plague- stricken subjects and render them every assistance he could. Very few Portuguese sovereigns had shown a deeper love for their subjects, and the part Dom Pedro v so nobly played in this great calamity endeared him to the nation. 15a c c B c c e e ' c c t c ,*c c c n Tr DUKE DE SALDANHA (1791-1876) Tarn of the Tide 153 In 1857 the King, whose popularity was now at its height, married Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern Sigmarigen. But, unhappily, she died the next year, and in her the nation mourned not merely a queen but a friend's wife ; and how cruelly the King's heart was torn with anguish may be imagined from the words he wrote in the letter acknowledging the sympathy of his people in his bereavement. In the meantime the political tranquillity that, towards the beginning of his reign, had in a great measure been restored to the kingdom, seemed on the point of disappearing. Dom Pedro v had observed the truce, which circumstances seemed to have established, by maintaining the Duke de Saldanha in power. But events were now rapidly bringing on the rupture between the parties. All hopes of inaugurating a happier order of things had perished. A financial crisis had overthrown Saldanha's government in 1857, and the Marquis de Loul6, who had once played an important part in the old Septembrist movement and was now leading a new party called ''Partido Historico," assumed premiership of the new ministry, which lasted till 1859. In Parliament Lould's ministry met with the violent opposition of the Cartistas, who wanted to triumph by the success with which 154 Porttigtiese Monarchy they exposed the insincerity of Louie's Ministers to give effect to the legislative reforms they desired to accomplish. Louie, however, tried to weaken the opposition by forming a ministry of coalition and offered Avila, who was a Cartista, a seat in the Cabinet as Minister of Finance. But Coalition Cabinets, it was said by somebody, '* are like Nebuchadnezzar's image ; they are com- posite in their character and liable to be broken in pieces and smashed up in delightful confusion." Such was the fate of Loul6-Avila's ministry, which had to resign in May 1859. In the midst of the political restlessness and discontent of the times there also arose a conflict with the Holy See, which no one desired, but which afforded an important warning of the dangers to which the prestige of the nation was exposed. For some time there had been dis- putes between the Priests of the Propaganda Fide and the Portuguese Missionaries over the rights of the Portuguese Patronage in the East. The extent to which the Priests of the Propaganda Fide, with her See in Rome, had carried their encroachments, had compelled the Portuguese Missionaries to insist on the inviolable rights that were solemnly granted and secured to Portugal in virtue of the Apostolic Bulls on the subject, Turn of the Tide 155 and in conformity with the Holy Canons of the Church. The troubles of the Patronage, however, were not new. They began on the day Portugal lost her political supremacy in the East. Till the beginning of the seventeenth century the Portuguese Patronage in Asia extended over Arabia Felix, Persia, Afghanistan, Cabul, Thibet, Tartary (central), the whole of India, Ceylon, Maldive Islands, kingdoms of Nepal, Assam, Burmese Empire, Pegu, twelve kingdoms in the Malay Peninsula, the islands of Sumatra, Sunda, Batavia, the Molucca Islands, the Chinese Empire, Eastern Tartary, the kingdoms of Corea and Japan ; and the history of Catholicism in the East fully justified Portugal's claim to those rights acquired by the legitimate titles of foundation and obtained at the cost of the blood of her martyrs. But the Curia Romana had everything her own way for a long time. During the Spanish domination, Philip iv of Castille had vainly pressed the Holy See to create new bishoprics in Japan and China. The next occasion of dissent had been the revolution of 1820, when the prejudices of the Castillian monarch were to be attended to, and Rome, to maintain good relations with Spain, was severing 156 Portagtiese Monarchy her diplomatic ties with Portugal, the Curia having meantime appointed apostolic vicars for Tonkin, Cochin China, and China. As time went on, the Portuguese diplomatic relations with Rome ceased, however, to be unfriendly, but there existed difficulties which time and patience alone could remove. The Holy See had, for instance, attempted to restrict the authority of the Archbishop of Goa in Portuguese India by forbidding him to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the apostolic vicars appointed by the Pope. It encountered a strenuous opposition in its endeavour to enforce that condition, offensive to the rights of Patronage, and Pope Alexander VII had to create, in China, bishoprics at Pekin and Nankin, and to grant to Portugal the right of Patronage over these dioceses. New events, however, led up to new disputes. An apostolic brief, ** Ex munere pastorali " of the 23rd December 1836, had separated the island of Ceylon from the Patronage, and the Bull, ** Multa praeclare," of the 21st April 1838, had abolished the right of Patronage outside Portuguese dominions. The conflict then, as was only natural, became extraordinarily vivid and acute. The Portuguese rights of Patronage not only did not cease to operate, but the incident almost gave Turn of the Tide 157 rise to schism in the East. Portugal, resenting the blow given to her pride and to not a few of her interests, contended that there had been an aggression on her rights. It required all the firmness of a government to deal with the situation, but the difficulty in the adjustment of the conflicting rights was, fortunately, solved by the ratification of the Concordat, signed on the 6th February 1857, between Cardinal di Pietro, representing the Pope, and Rodrigo de Magalhaes, fully accredited and commissioned by the Portuguese Crown. That diplomatic agreement, although it did not recognise such rights as existed before, nevertheless paved the way for peace between the conflicting parties. By its stipula- tions it was agreed to that the rights of Patronage of the Portuguese Crown should be exercised, as regards India and China, over the cathedrals of Goa, Cranganore, Cochin, Mylapore, Malay, and Macau. But the end was not yet. Issues were raised in the next few years which were not visible at the moment. A new Concordat had to be signed in the year 1886, and to-day the Archbishop of Goa has been raised by the Constitution, '* Humanae Salutis Auctor," of the 1st September 1886, to the title of Patriarch of the East Indies, in virtue of which he holds the 158 Porttigttese Monarchy highest place in the Catholic hierarchy of the East Indies, and he exercises his jurisdiction over the bishops of Damaum with the title of Arch- bishop ad honorem of Cranganore, Cochin, Mylapore, Macau in China, his area of jurisdiction extending also to Mozambique in Africa, in virtue of the Constitution, " In eminenti," of 1612. The political history of Portugal now turns upon two points : the formation of a new party that is known as Regenerador, consisting of the old partisans of Saldanha, and having the adherence of the Cartistas, and the contest for power between the two parties known as the Regener adores or Liberal Conservatives, who represent the Cartistas, and the Progressistas or Democratic Liberals, who claim the inheritance of the Partido Historico. With LouM's overthrow in 1859, the first Regenerador ministry attained power. It had for its chief the Duke of Terceira, who died the same year and was replaced by Antonio Augusto d* Aguiar, also professing the same political creed. But this ministry did not sustain itself long in power. The financial bills of Casal Ribeiro caused its immediate downfall, and matters came to such a crisis that the ministry, Loul^-d' Avila, came again to power, Loul^ being Premier and Tarn of the Tide i59 Antonio Jos6 d' Avila, Minister of Finance ; and the ministry, to maintain itself in power, dissolved the Cortes. From these scenes of political conflicts we now pass on to a domestic calamity that threw the nation into deep affliction and cast an additional gloom over the country. In November 1861, the King, Pedro v, lay dying in his capital, desolated by a pestilence. For months past his health had been impaired, but he had refused to leave his pestilence-stricken people. A tragic note was struck by the death of his younger brother, Dom Fernando, which occurred on the 6th of the same month. On the nth, new bitterness was poured into an already brimming cup ! King Pedro v died of cholera in his twenty-fourth year of age, and he was followed to the grave soon after by his brother, Dom Joao. Thus in less than two months three members of the Royal House had fallen victims to the pestilence, and thus ended his days — a king who, with unconscious simplicity, endeared himself to the nation, and whose character subdued into affectionate admiration every one of his subjects. His career, though a short one, was marked by great vicissitudes. King Pedro v endured a life of sorrow that began with the loss, at a very early 160 Porttigtiese Monarchy period of marriage, of a wife whom he mourned till death. But in the midst of all his misfortunes he consoled the nation in her trials. A heart worn by bitter sorrowing over his own mis- fortunes and those of his country, a soul unusually sensitive and therefore unusually suffering, he fulfilled the minutest duties of a king, and he became a victim to the natural impulses of his disposition, thus earning for himself a reputation the memory of which still lives in the country. But all the years of the reign of this king, " smitten in the flower of his age in the midst of unfinished works, "^ are not to be marked with the cypress emblems of melancholy and sorrow. The reign of Pedro v is not to be associated only with the humiliating affair of Charles et Georges^ in which triumphed the chicanery of Napoleon iii, who, in revenge for Saldanha having ^ Vide E. Silvercruy's Le Portugal. ^ " This French ship was engaged in what was undoubtedly the slave trade, though slightly disguised, off the coast of Africa, when it was seized by the authorities of Mozambique, and, in accordance with the laws and treaties against the slave trade, its captain, Roussel, was condemned to two years' imprisonment. The Emperor, Napoleon ill, glad to have a chance of posing be- fore the French people, and counting on his close alliance with England, instantly sent a large fleet to the Tagus under Admiral Lavaud and demanded compensation, which, as England showed no signs of assistance, Portugal was compelled to pay." Vide Morse Stephens' article on "Portugal" in the Encyclopcedia BritannicUy 9th ed., vol. xix. in-' DOM PEDRO V, KING OF PORTUGAL (1853-1861) Tarn of the Tide I6i allowed French Republican refugees to settle in Portugal, thought it a good opportunity to dictate terms to^ Portugal and compel this small country to pay a heavy compensation of 349,000 francs to France — an injustice so brutal that a dis- tinguished Frenchman, in the person of Paul Leroi-Beaulieu, some years after, in his well- known work, De la Colonisation chez les Peuples Modernes, declared that act as a great blemish on Napoleon iii's career. The pestilence-stricken age of Dom Pedro v, however, was cheered by a period of great intellectual activity. We have at this time in Portugal a rising and most promising generation of poets and historians, indisputably the best since the learned days of Francisco Manuel de Nascimento, known as Filinto Elysio, who gave the initial impulse to the revival of letters, and the famous Bocage, whose charming sonnets and odes are still heard in midwinter in many a Portuguese home. Among the leaders of this new generation stand pre-eminent Almeida Garrett and Alexandre Herculano, the two great representatives of the school of romanticism, who owed much to their exile in England and France, which was an inspiration to both. The great political changes which distinguished the period preceding the firm II 162 Portagaese Monarchy establishment of the Constitutional Charter had reflected in the literature of the country. Letters and arts had died in Portugal from the time the nation had to reckon with foreign as well as domestic oppressors. A foreign invasion had placed her national existence at the mercy of a general. The country had hardly been free from the scourges of a military rule when the liberties of the land were destroyed by Dom Miguel, who behaved with a tyranny and intolerance that made the task of political union and national progress impossible. In those circumstances it was hardly surprising that the native literature of the country should have sunk into a very low and feeble state. But among the multitude of crimes committed in those days of utter lawlessness was that national questions were turned into a personal dangerous quarrel. The disorder which had resulted from the political passions, such as in days of confusion and anarchy rise to the surface, had compelled men of letters to leave the country and, in the cause of liberty, seek refuge in a foreign land. But as the political storm gradually abated and liberty — which is the life of literature — had in great measure been restored to the country, a new era Tfi^ ALMEIDA GARRETT (1799-1854) Tarn of the Tide i63 in the literary history of the country began, and Portugal entered into the great literary move- ment of the age under the influence of Byron, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Alfred de Vigny, and Victor Hugo. This new era was characterised by a spirit of investigation which was neither pedantic nor servile, but free and emulative, which called into exercise abilities which were directed to higher ideals. Thus Almeida Garrett produced works of signal merit, notably his Romanceiro, which presents an admirable collection of popular romances which derived fresh charm from his elegant style ; his Dona Branca y with its codes of chivalry, with all its traditions ; and Camoes, an invaluable monu- ment to the great epic which the admiration of posterity would not allow to perish. Actuated by a spirit of patriotism that never deserted him, Garrett also revived the Portuguese theatre, which, since the early efforts of Gil Vicente, the first and greatest of Portuguese dramatists, had been in a state of decadence. With his play, Luis de Sousa, chiefly founded on historical traditions, he appealed to the national sentiment ; and by producing such plays as the Alfagema de Santarem, where he depicted the brilliant epoch of John i, the Auto de Gil Vicente, describing the times of Manuel i. 164 Porttigtiese Monarchy and the Filipa de Vilhena, relating to the great period of independence, Garrett tried to do for Portugal what Shakespeare had done for England. This movement accomplished much for the political union and the cause of national progress, and the new literary aspirations of Garrett embodied themselves most distinctly in that pleiad of poets and prose writers that came after him, consisting of Bulhao Pato, Gomes d' Amorim, E. Vidal, Joao de Lemos, Palmeirim, Soares de Passos, Thomaz Ribeiro, Mendes Leal, Julio Diniz, Camillo Castello Branco, and Pinheiro Chagas. Alexandre Herculano, on the other hand, having ransacked ancient chronicles hitherto buried in musty manuscripts, produced O Eurico and Monge de Cyster, the two great historical romances, and other novels that are said to bear the stamp of the influence of Lamartine and Walter Scott. The great triumph of Herculano, however, was that, when clearing his way through the endless and hopeless labyrinth of fanciful legends and chronicles that embellished Portuguese history, which, till then, had not been deeply studied or distinctly understood, he wrote his History of Portugal and The Origin of the Inquisition in Portugal \ and in his History of Portugal^ a Turn of the Tide 165 masterpiece of historic prose, is comprised the history of Portugal till the reign of Affonso iii. Accustomed to the scientific methods of Niebuhr and Ranke, he produced a work bearing relation to contested and difficult points in some periods of early Portuguese history, and thus created disciples in the historians that followed him ; and in the historical works of Rebello da Silva, Visconde de Santarem, and Latino Coelho, the influence of Herculano became paramount. To return, however, to the political situation of the country. On the death of Dom Pedro v, Ferdinand, the King Consort, who had survived the death of his wife, Queen Maria ii, and his three sons, assumed the Regency until the arrival of Dom Louis i, who was travelling on the Continent, when he was unexpectedly summoned to ascend the throne. The political events of the beginning of the new reign relate chiefly to the Lould-Avila ministry that King Louis i main- tained in power. The ministry, Lould-d' Avila, continued in power till April 1865, when it was replaced by a new ministry presided over by Sd de Bandeira. The situation was now worse than ever. Domestic difficulties pressed hard upon the new Government. Parties ran into extremes in their 166 Porttigiiese Monarchy attempt to seize the helm of State, instead of helping those who held it to steer in the right direction. In the meantime, it was unfortunate for Portugal that, at such a critical turn in her domestic policy, the country should have lost two of her great politicians. Soon after the death of Dom Pedro v, Manuel da Silva Passos, a politician of indepen- dent mind and of very high personal character, had passed away, and towards the end of the year 1862 Jose Estevao, a great orator and a man of dauntless courage and inflexible integrity, who called the attention of the nation to the humiliating affair of Charles et Georges, had died. During the years that followed. Parliament met only to raise every other question which can embarrass a Government. Ministries were driven from power, one after another, without removing from the nation her grievances. This state of _affairs precipitated a financial crisis, and the ministry of Joaquim Antonio d' Aguiar, in order to procure funds for the payment of State creditors, had to adopt new administrative reforms. It even enforced food taxes, which provoked a revolution in Lisbon in January 1868, after which Aguiar had to tender his resignation. Avila, who then was called to power, proposed in the Turn of the Tide i67 Parliament an abrogation of those laws of his predecessor which had given rise to disorders and more than once threatened internal peace. But the Opposition did all it could to defeat the Government's proposals, with the result that the Cortes were dissolved and the laws arbitrarily suspended by the Government. Avila, however, who thought he held the solution in his hands, resolutely put before the new Cortes new proposals to improve a financial administration that was ruinously vicious and inefficient. The new Cortes, when summoned to discuss these proposals, refused to sanction them. To meet such a situation Avila demanded of the King a dissolution of the Cortes, which, being refused, the ministry had to resign. In the midst of grave internal affairs, when Portugal was absorbed in her domestic concerns, there took place an event that deserves mention, and which brings forward the character of Dom Ferdinand of Saxe Coburg, the Kings father, among those of the other great personalities of the time. When the Spanish monarchy became almost extinguished with the flight of Isabella ii to France, when none of the Bourbon candidates were thought acceptable, and Prim was free to find, if he could, a monarch for the vacant throne, 168 Portagtiese Monarchy the Government of Madrid, presided over by Serrano, made a proposal for offering the Crown of Spain to Dom Ferdinand, and it had decided to send over a special mission to express to Dom Ferdinand the desire of Spain. But Dom Ferdinand, though a foreign Prince, had the conscience and self-command to declare to Spain that he was not prepared to abdicate the rights of a Portuguese and convert himself into a Spanish King ; and the Marquis Sd de Bandeira lost no time in informing the Portuguese representative in Madrid that Dom Ferdinand was not willing to receive the Spanish delegates of the special mission coming over to Portugal. Dom Ferdi- nand went so far as to declare that he would decline to accept the Crown of Spain even if he were elected by her Cortes — a step of which it was hard to prognosticate the effects, but which un- doubtedly contributed to lower the importance of the Iberian Federation. This refusal naturally displeased Spain, and Castellar, the great leader of the Spanish Republicans, gave vent to his indignation by insulting Dom Ferdinand openly in the Cortes. Yet that offer was but an ex- pedient resorted to by those who were plotting against the autonomy of Portugal, and were avail- ing themselves of a favourable circumstance to Tarn of the Tide i69 give it a blow. " These people are our great enemies, for they hinder the passing of useful legislation which might work for the common good of the two peoples, such as the develop- ment of international communication, progress in the betterment of the material conditions of the two countries, the unity of weights, measures, money, and custom regulations,"^ had been the words uttered by Dom Pedro v when this same proposal had been made to that unfortunate monarch. The nation no doubt was feeble, and her political energies had been greatly strained by party struggle ; but nevertheless she enjoyed a great degree of political consciousness. The productiveness of Portugal in great literary in- dividualities had been phenomenal during this epoch. They had produced works of literature which are the pride of the country to-day. This had asserted the rights of independence of a people and strengthened the belief in Portugal for the Portuguese. Dom Ferdinand therefore, regardless of the lines from the Phenissae of Euripides, — ** that if ever it be fitting to commit wrong, the noblest motive for this is the gain of sovereign power," — took the course which he con- ^ " Cesare Cantu : Gli ultimi trinta anni." 170 Porttigtiese Monarchy celved the most consistent with the welfare of the nation. After the resignation of Avila s ministry, it is almost unnecessary to add, the gravity of the internal situation had become still more accentu- ated. Soon after, the Duke de Saldanha, who a few years before held the political destinies of Portugal in his hands, and who had long been waiting for his turn at the wheel, put himself at the head of some troops, surrounded the Royal Palace on the 19th May 1870, and compelled the King to dismiss the ministry of the Duke de Lould that was in power ; and he assumed Premiership ; but the Cortes refusing to accept the octogenarian marshal's dictatorship, Saldanha had to leave power on the 30th August of that year. That bold coup ddtat, however, was only a flicker of the old enthusiasm for pronuncia- mentos, which disappeared with Saldanha, who was soon after appointed to the most important diplomatic mission which Portugal sends forth — that of Portuguese Minister in London, where he died in 1876. The situation now required a prompt and effectual solution, and it pleased King Louis to call to his counsels Pontes Pereira de Mello, who organised a ministry of Regeneradores and took Turn of the Tide i7i upon himself the responsiblHty of the ministry of finance. Thus he hoped to set the national finance on a sound footing, but the question of questions was whether the Opposition would con- sent to contribute towards the solution of such a crisis. The great ferocity with which the Opposition had assailed the decree of December 1878, issued during the administration of Pontes, had painfully convinced the country of the impossibility of any compromise between the Government and the Opposition. That decree had sanctioned for twenty years a grant including all gold and other mines belonging to the State in Eastern Africa to Captain Paiva d' Andrade and the Companies he might form for their exploration, on condition that, besides the usual taxes, he should pay to the State five per cent, of the gold obtained. But the Progressistas had violently opposed the decree, and tried to justify their panicmongering on the ground that the Government was endanger- ing the safety of the colonies by opening out chances for foreigners and foreign capital. Experience had therefore shown that, under the circumstances, it was impossible for Pontes to remedy the financial situation. To meet a deficit of nearly ;^665,ooo in the Budget of the year, he 172 Porttigtcese Monarchy had shown how a sum of ;^ 12 2,000 might be raised by increasing the duties on tobacco ; but the ministry, being assailed and obstructed at every turn, had to abandon power in May 1879. The ministry which under Anselmo Jos^ Braamcamp — who, on the death of Loul6, had been elected leader of the Progressistas — attained power later, was not to enjoy a longer tenure of office. Its Bills, which aimed to create new sources of revenue and cover the deficit of about ^1,100,000 shown in the Budget of the year, and the proposal of an income tax — undertaken with the most excellent motives, as nearly all such legislation was, but which was thought to be a great hardship to the nation — gave the Opposi- tion an opportunity to stir up the country's wrath against the Government. Meanwhile, the Lourengo Marques Treaty, arranged between England and Portugal by the late Cabinet, but signed by the Portuguese Pleni- potentiary after the Cabinet had resigned, forced the struggle between the two parties to an immediate issue. The Progressistas who were in power had raised objection to the concessions made by that treaty, for which they thought Portugal had received no adequate return from her ally ; and to relieve their ministry of responsi- Tarn of the Tide 173 bility in that treaty, they protested against the article 4, sec. 2, ''giving the British Govern- ment right to land and embark troops at Lourengo Marques with free passage from there across Portuguese territory," article 5, sec. C, " respect- ing the rights to maintain English bonded houses there," and article 12, sec. 4, "giving discretionary powers to the Governor of Mozam- bique to authorise British cruisers to act inde- pendently in Portuguese territorial waters for the suppression of slavery." Accordingly, the Govern- ment considered a renewal of the treaty necessary, and the negotiations carried on between the two Governments from August till December 1880 re- sulted in an Additional Act, signed 31st December, whereby its former perpetuity ceased and twelve years were stipulated as the duration of the treaty. But when the Government met the Cortes with the announcement of the alterations the treaty had undergone, and it came for discussion in the Chamber of Deputies, the Regeneradores opposed its provisions so violently that, when the time came for voting, they left the House in a body. Soon after, the Government submitted the treaty to the Chamber of Peers, where the Regeneradores held the majority, and it was rejected. Under the circumstances the Prime 174 Portagtiese Monarchy Minister asked the King for an adjourn- ment of the Cortes, which being refused, the ministry of Braamcamp, unable to stand the severity and violence of the Opposition, resigned in March 1881. This ministry was replaced by a Regenerador ministry under Antonio Rodrigues Sampaio, twice Home Minister, which lived till November of that year. The troubles of these ministries by no means ended with them. The great African problem manifestly accelerated a crisis in the affairs of Portugal and inflamed more than ever the partisan spirit. When Pontes Pereira de Mello came again to power, the Congo affair and the treaty concluded in London on 26th February 1884 occupied the attention of the nation to the exclusion of everything else ; and soon after the politicians resumed their discussion on the Conference of Berlin, convened through a foreign minister who was sent on a mission to the Courts of London, Paris, Berlin, and Hague, and which defined the rights of Portugal and settled her position in Congo. To Pontes Pereira de Mello, however, who was a statesman of large views, the financial state of the country had become the subject of utmost importance. He was eager to devise Tarn of the Tide 175 means for lightening the national burden. But this chance had been denied to him by the Opposition ; and Pontes, in order to weaken the Opposition, had even deemed it convenient to realise the desires of Radical Reformers by bringing in, in 1883, the Constitutional Reform Bill, which was published as law on 24th July 1885, its most important feature being the abolition of the hereditary principle in the Chamber of Peers. It is interesting, however, to note that this Bill formed a part of the Progressista pro- gramme. But what the Regenerador Prime Minister wanted was not so much to outbid the rival party in her promises to the country, as to maintain himself in power and win the support of a new party led by Dias Ferreira, the famous legislator, Pinheiro Chagas, and Manuel Vaz Preto — a party that adhered to the Constitution of 1838, with an elective Senate and Council of State. It was therefore no special desire for special reform. The debate on this Bill, however, was highly interesting. The Government thought it had made a great stroke of policy in the Parliament ; but as the details oozed out, it became evident 176 Portttgtcese Monarchy that the Progressistas, though believing in the principles of that Bill, only saw in the provisions of the Act materials for protracted discussion. The case for the Opposition against the Reform Bill was the part of that Bill by which it was provided that four years had to pass before any further proposal or reform could be made. Thus the ministry of Pontes, unable to face such an Opposition, and consequently unable to meet the most pressing needs of the Exchequer, resigned in February 1886. After him came Jos6 Luciano de Castro, who, on the death of Braamcamp, had been elected, in 1885, leader of the Progressistas. He attained power with a ministry that achieved an inspiring success in endeavouring to settle some of the African difficulties by signing a number of treaties of delimitation. At this stage occurred the death of King Louis, who passed away on the 19th October 1889 — a king who possessed, in an eminent degree, all the virtues of the best Constitutional monarchs. It may be well to state that King Louis took great pains to keep himself outside and above party politics, and so far as his pre- rogatives permitted, he delivered himself at times, * ' " e ,e s c e e e «c e 1 1 c e e e t c c c ,c •^ ALEXANDRE HERCULANO (1810-1877) Ttirn of the Tide 177 from the dictation of his Ministers. Last but not least, a King who, when the Pan-Iberians carried an agitation in his favour, stated in a letter to Lould "that he meant to die as he lived — a Portuguese." Devoted to literature and arts, and well acquainted with the writings of Shakespeare, whose Hamlet he translated into Portuguese, he took a peculiar pleasure in encouraging letters and sciences in his country. The years of his reign, notwithstanding all the failings that may be discovered in the political history of this epoch, witnessed a marked progress. A decree, signed in 1862, did away with capital punishment. Another decree abolished slavery in all the Portuguese territories. An important principle was introduced in the Constitution by the reconstitution of the House of Peers from an hereditary chamber to one of life-peers. There was a great extension of railway and telegraph systems owing to the measures of Pontes Pereira de Mello, whose administration had greatly benefited the country. The efforts of such a literary man as Antonio Feliciano de Castilho, though much blamed by his contem- poraries for his classicist proclivities, resulted in a wide diffusion of primary and secondary 12 178 Porttigtiese Monarchy education. A promulgation of a new code regulating the functions of the administrative bodies of the nation had helped to smooth the working of the executive ; and, finally, the third centenary celebration of Camoes in 1880 was made the occasion for a demonstration of good feelings between the Portuguese in the Continent and the Brazilians, who joined together to honour the memory of a bard whose glories they both share — a feeling which, of course, arises from the sense of common citizenship. IX A FRIENDS' QUARREL AMIDST the changes that were in progress in Portugal, a change still more important had taken place in her colonial policy, which had for its objects the opening of new fields for colonisation and industry. Hitherto the rich African colonies had rested upon too material a basis. A system of monopolies had flourished towards the end of the sixteenth century. It had enabled the Portuguese governors to fleece the colonies for their own advantage — a state of affairs that continued till 1838, when the harbours of Mozambique were declared open to national and foreign trade. Later on the colonial expansion in America had given an enormous importance to the slave trade that went on increasing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Angola and Mozambique had become the chief marts for this traffic in human flesh with all its miseries. The Portuguese, in their constant anxiety to make wealthy returns to 180 Porttigtiese Monarchy the mother country, had exploited the riches of Brazil by draining the African colonies of their best population, and disgraced themselves by the atrocities which were committed in those times under the Portuguese flag. The time had now come when steps were taken for the extirpation of this evil, and Portugal made a determined attempt at abolish- ing slavery. To carry this into execution several decrees had become necessary. On the loth December 1836, a decree had abolished the slave traffic in all the Portuguese dominions, which proved more than an experiment and laid the foundation of future colonial prosperity. But a single decree could not suppress the evil. It naturally gave rise to clandestine traffic. But, fortunately, there rose to the occa- sion a man like the Marquis de Sd de Bandeira, the Wilberforce of Portugal, whose untiring efforts in the cause of justice and humanity resulted in the Duke de Palmella signing the treaty of 1842, by which Portugal secured the co-operation of England to put down the slave traffic in Africa. That treaty, as justly pointed out by Andrade Corvo in his Estudos sobre as Provincias Ultramarinas, was most beneficial to the interests of Portugal. But slavery was A Friends' Qtiarrcl i8i not yet destroyed. In 1854 a decree ordered the registration of all slaves. It also set free all the slaves belonging to the State. Two years later a decree abolished slavery at Ambriz, Cabinda, and Molembo. Another decree, issued in 1858, announced that twenty years henceforth slavery was to cease in all the dominions of the Crown ; but the very next year a decree ordered the immediate abolition of slavery, and for that purpose the 27th April 1877 was fixed as the day for that decree to be enforced. But a renewed vigour began to make itself felt in this campaign, so that in 1875 ^ ^^^ was passed by which slavery, in no matter what form, was abolished in all the Portuguese dominions. Thus was laid the foundation of a colonial policy that could no longer be identified with a policy of material rather than moral force. The effective occupation of Angola in 1848 by Joaquim Rodrigo Graga, and the settlement of a European colony at Mozambique in 1856, were the first steps towards the formation of a colonial empire in Africa. The project of securing the formation of a continuous belt of empire by uniting Angola to Mozambique, and thus connecting the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, 182 Porttcgticse Monarchy which had been entertained for a long time, had thrown a great interest upon Africa. Although the daj's of her greatness in colonial expansion were now gone by, and Portugal was reduced to the fourth colonial power, she had now her explorers like Serpa Pinto, Antonio Maria Cardoso, Brito Capello, Ivens Victor Cordon, Augusto Cardoso, Paiva d' Andrade, Henrique de Carvalho, and Alvaro Castelloes, who had resumed the pioneering work done by their ancestors in the sphere of travel and exploration. In this she could challenge, and justly, all modern Europe. The scientific expeditions of 1877 had therefore not only contributed to create much speculation concerning Africa, but had been the means of producing effective enthusiasm in the country. The sanguine hopes for the future were well justified by the successful efforts of the Portu- guese explorers in the past. Dr. Francisco Jose Maria de Lacerda e Almeida, that great explorer who, strange to say, predicted in 1796 that the seizure of Cape Town by the British would lead to the creation of a Great British empire in Africa, a man noted for his scientific exploration of Brazil, had, in 1798, made his great inland journey from Mozambique and reached Cazembe, A Friends' Quarrel i83 where he died. But the real crossing of the Continent from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean was not accomplished till the natives, Pombeiros, Pedro Joao Baptista, and Amaro Jos6, under the guidance of the Portuguese Governor, Antonio Saldanha de Gama, and the Portuguese Colonel, Honorato da Costa, who had set out from Angola, passed through the territories of Muata Hienvo, the Cazembe, and reached the river Zambesi between the years 1802 and 181 1. A good many years elapsed before another successful attempt was made by Major Francisco Coimbra to cross the territories lying between Mozambique and Benguella, in the years 1838 to 1848. With that same object Silva Porto, accompanied by a native servant, had, in the years 1852 to 1856, crossed from Benguella to the mouth of the river Rovunna, the explorer having spent a year and two months on his journey. But when an important part of this colonial programme was to be carried out, the Portu- guese attempt at expansion was frustrated by the disastrous results of a dispute which dis- turbed the friendly relations between England and Portugal. The British colonial interests in that part of Africa known to-day as Rhodesia had clashed with those of Portugal, and there 184 Porttigiicse Monarchy arose a dispute between the two countries over Manicaland and Shire Highlands. So much for generalities. Let us now go into particulars of this unfortunate incident that marked the beginning of the reign of King Carlos, who, on the death of his father, King Louis, ascended the throne of Portugal. It was in Quilimane, the district of the Province of Mozambique, the principal settlement of the Portuguese in Africa, which is situated on the northern arm of the delta of the Zambesi, in the region of the Shire, and more to the north in the country of the Matabeles and the Mashonas, that the disputed territories were situated. The dispute began when a Rev. J. S. Moffat, British Assistant-Commissioner in Bechuanaland, signed a treaty on nth February 1888, by which Lobengula, a Matabele Chief who had put his mark to it, agreed not to enter into relations with any foreign power without the sanction of Great Britain. That treaty raised a protest from the Portuguese Consul at the Cape of Good Hope ; and when the provisions of the treaty, by which England was declaring a Pro- tectorate over territories that Portugal was con- testing as her own, had been communicated by the British Colonial Office to the Foreign Office, Miguel Dantas, the Portuguese Minister in A Friends' Quarrel iss London, lodged a protest against it. On the 28th May the protest of the Portuguese Consul at the Cape of Good Hope had reached London. The text of the treaty with Lobengula received by the British Government on the 31st May was communicated to the Portuguese Government on the nth June. On the 24th of that same month the Portuguese Foreign Minister received an official note to the effect that the British Govern- ment considered the region comprising the terri- tories of Khama and of the Matabeles subject to the British Protectorate, and on the ist August Sir George Bonham had declared that the British Government regarded Mashonaland as a part of the British Protectorate. In the meantime Cecil Rhodes, who was to play so great a part in consolidating the British dominions in Africa, had succeeded, in October 1888, in obtaining from Lobengula a concession of all mining rights in Mashonaland. The Portuguese Consul at the Cape of Good Hope and the Portuguese Minister in London had protested against this concession. But in vain the Portuguese representatives had recourse to protests to induce Lord Salisbury to alter his resolve. He was maintaining the rights of the Matabele Chief over Mashonaland, including the 186 Porttigttcse Monarchy people under the dominion of Gaza, a territory under the Protectorate of Portugal, and territories of other chiefs who had declared themselves feudatories and tributaries to the Crown of Portugal. Portugal, however, was not claiming the whole of Mashonaland, but only those territories to which her rights were founded on priority of discovery, conquest by arms, and introduction of Christianity — rights fully recognised by the law of nations. The depredations of Lobengula in these territories were alone sufficient to coun- teract the arrogance of that Matabele Chief who was now claiming to be the lord of territories to which he had no right whatever. There is, however, no denying the fact that this usurpation of territories had served the Portuguese right, for it was their own fault that some of these territories had had no effective occupation. They had only them- selves to blame for not having definitely settled the boundaries of their East African possessions. In the meantime Glynn Petre, the British Minister in Lisbon, had arranged, on the 30th October, with Barros Gomes, the Portuguese Foreign Minister, a delimitation of boundaries of Portuguese territories in East Africa. While these negotiations were pending, a Portuguese A Friends' Quarrel i87 expedition under Antonio Maria Cardoso had started for Nyassaland to confirm and extend the work already done in that region by the explorers, Serpa Pinto and Augusto Cardoso. That expedition naturally raised a cry of pro- found indignation in England. Soon after, Serpa Pinto had started with another scientific expedi- tion. At the same time the British South Africa Company was being created, to which a Royal Charter had been granted on 29th October 1889, with general powers that seriously threatened the interests of the Portuguese colony of Mozam- bique. It was now high time that Portugal should define her colonial rights in that part of Africa. In order to do that, she had to enforce her authority in the territories of those native chiefs who had submitted themselves to the Crown of Portugal. That alone could accom- plish the ends that Portugal had now in view. In these days Portugal was also creating the district of Zumbo, comprising territories to which, according to England, Portugal had no right. The two conflicting parties were still quivering with the excitement aroused by these mutual retaliations when Serpa Pinto carried his scientific expedition into the land of the Makololos, a war- like tribe inhabiting the country situated to the 188 Porttigticse Monarchy south of Blantyre, the original home of the Universities' Mission, and to the north of M'passo, a town on the borders of the Shire, where resided a Portuguese Governor, judges, and other authorities. He had come to the tribes to whom Consul Johnston **had been distributing British flags." Then suddenly the horizon darkened. When Serpa Pinto arrived at M'passo, he learnt that the Makololos were not willing to allow his expedition to pass any farther. At this juncture Serpa Pinto was reminded by Buchanan, the acting British Consul, of the rights of protectorate that he exercised over this people in virtue of a treaty he had arranged with Melauri, their Chief, who, strange to say, *'had the superstition of putting his own mark to the treaty," as Buchanan himself confessed ; but the Portuguese explorer had, with a blunt honesty and manliness of spirit, appealed to Buchanan to exercise his authority and let his expedition pass through those terri- tories, but all such expectations were strangely disappointed when the acting British Consul informed the Portuguese explorer that " to his regret he found it difficult to convince the Makololos" that the expedition of Serpa Pinto was purely scientific. This resulted in the Makololos attacking the Portuguese expedition A Friends' Quarrel i89 on the 8th November 1889. Serpa Pinto defended himself and inflicted on them a " crush- ing victory," as described in the English Blue Books. Soon after, he received the submission of Melauri. , After this a cloud of complete distrust environed the assurances of the Portuguese Foreign Minister, and no policy of conciliation became possible. Lord Salisbury, when informed of the Makololos' defeat, demanded that the Portuguese troops should be immediately withdrawn from the Shire, the Makololo country, and Mashonaland, and on nth January 1890 he sent an ultimatum to Portugal. Simultaneously British men-of-war, ironclads, and war vessels were receiving orders, some to leave for Delagoa Bay and others to proceed to Cape Verde Islands and the Tagus. This caused a painful effect on the well-wishers of the Anglo- Portuguese alliance and drove the nation to despair. Portugal found it impos- sible to repress her complaints and conceal her indignation. We cannot, however, blame Lord Salisbury too bitterly for that vehemence of will and persuasion of his own righteousness which characterised the Mlti7natum he addressed to Portugal. It was clearly a difficult task for Lord 190 Porttcgtiese Monarchy Salisbury to deal with the tangle of interests thrust into his hands by the Scottish missionaries and the party that represented the interests of the Cape. The Scottish Universities' Mission, who had their establishments at Blantyre, near the Shire, had thought it their privilege to give the lead in African policy, and had pressed earnestly their local interests upon the attention of Lord Salisbury. On the other hand, the Englishmen representing the interests of the Cape, convinced that there was no ally whom Great Britain could discover in Africa more likely to be useful to her than Portugal, were honestly working towards a policy of co-operation. This difference of opinion in England was so strongly marked that Johnston, the Consul at Mozambique, had been sent to Lisbon by the party representing the interests of the Cape, and he had concluded an arrangement with Barros Gomes by which Portugal, in exchange for a satisfactory delimitation of her colonies of Mozambique and Angola, was willing to give up her claims to the territories near the Nyassa and Zambesi. But the efforts of Johnston, who addressed himself with vigour to the task of solving all difficulties, had been in vain. The Scottish missionaries had put difficulties in the way of this arrangement which acknowledged A Friends' Quarrel i9i their establisments near the Shire and the Nyassa as being in recognised Portuguese territory. Thus all attempts at conciliation had failed, and the influence of the Scottish Universities' Mission was so great in English politics that a British Minister had to cast his foreign policy in a clerical mould. The ultimahcm of 1890 was therefore the natural outcome of a succession of events which com- pelled Lord Salisbury to abandon the traditional English policy of conciliation and adopt a policy which was a palpable menace to Portuguese ex- pansion, perhaps even to Portuguese independence. But ere long Lord Salisbury gave proof of a decided dislike he must have had for unofficial interferences in diplomatic relations between different countries. It was highly characteristic of his manly nature to have pronounced, in 1897, in a speech at the Mansion House, a very severe censure upon all such interferences, and have said, ** If you keep the unofficial people in order, I will promise you the official people will never make war." And again, in 1900, it is recorded that he calmly and deliberately thought that, " though governments may have an appearance and even a reality of pacific intention, their action is always liable to be superseded by the violent and vehement operations of mere ignorance. We 192 Portttgtiese Monarchy cannot be certain that any government will not yield its powers to the less educated and less enlightened classes, by whom more and more in many countries of the world public affairs are being governed." Such were the very suggestive words of Lord Salisbury. But the ultimatum did not solve the African question. ** It was an incident, and an incident does not resolve a question," as gravely remarked Hintze Ribeiro, the new Foreign Minister, in the speech he delivered in the House of Peers on the 9th June 1 89 1. The period of academic discussion had now ended. The Progressista ministry, with Barros Gomes as Foreign Minister, had been forced to resign and make room for a new ministry of Regeneradores, with Serpa Pimental as Premier and Hintze Ribeiro as Foreign Secretary. The chief object of the new Government had been to maintain order in the country and offer resistance to every appearance of lawlessness. But nothing would repress the popular movements of indignation. Thus, at the General Election that had followed, the African explorer, Serpa Pinto, was returned in three different constituencies, the city of Lisbon placing him at the head of the poll with an overwhelming majority. • T» • • • e J^o c c SERPA PINTO (1846- I 900) m^ A Friends' Quarrel 193 It was indeed a crisis to try a nation's soul. The suspense was trying, and the worst was naturally looked for. The ultimatum had given a cruel provocation, and all Europe beheld with astonishment this impetuous act of an English minister who, perhaps, was happy to think that he had thus brought a country to sudden reason. Diplomats had protested against it, but the territories had to be evacuated. What was Portugal now to do .^ She could not go to war with a nation whose gigantic squadrons at Zanzibar, Gibraltar, and the Canary Islands, already set in motion, had revealed her great naval supremacy. A great power against a small nation, with neither allies nor a navy, were heavy odds. There was practically no alternative for Portugal but to submit under protest and appeal to Article 12 of the General Act of the Berlin Conference. Portugal was now anxious to submit the question to arbitration, which would remove all cause of misunderstanding between England and Portugal and give some guarantee for the future tranquillity of the possessions of the two nations in Africa, and Hintze Ribeiro had attempted to carry into effect this question of arbitration in the right way. He had referred his proposals to the signatory powers of the Act of Berlin Conference and 194 Portttgtcese Monarchy endeavoured to obtain for it the support of those powers. He had also instructed Barjona de Freitas, the Portuguese Plenipotentiary sent specially to London on that occasion, to propose the question to be settled by arbitration. But Lord Salisbury would not have it, and had objected to it on the ground that Article 1 2 of the General Act of the Berlin Conference prescribed mediation before an appeal to arms, and he had authorised his representatives in Lisbon to make a declaration to that effect. But Hintze Ribeiro was arguing that Serpa Pinto had only subjected a people that, till then, Portugal had considered as acknowledging her sovereignty, and that, by the fact of the troops having been withdrawn by Portugal after the ultimatum from the district to the north and south of Zambeze, the whole question had assumed its primary phase, which, in other words, meant that there could be an appeal made to Article 1 2 of the General Act of Berlin Conference. There was no reason whatever why this question should not have been submitted to arbitration. Nor was this the first dispute that, in modern times, had arisen in the Dark Continent between England and Portugal. England had once disputed the Portuguese rights to the island of Bolama on the Guinea Coast, A Friends' Quarrel i95 made over to Portugal in 1607 by the King of Guinala, and had based her claims on a concession made to her in 1792. But the contending parties having agreed, on the 13th January 1868, to submit the dispute to the arbitration of the President of the United States, the question was decided, on the 21st April 1870, in favour of Portugal. Later on, when Captain Owen concluded a treaty with King Tebe, by which the southern part of Delagoa Bay was ceded to Great Britain, and Portugal protested against this infringement of her rights, it was mutually agreed to let Marshal MacMahon settle this dispute, and the President of the French Republic, by his judgment of 24th July 1875, ^^^ confirmed the historic rights of Portugal over Delagoa Bay. The proposal made by the Portuguese Foreign Minister was therefore of great consequence, and such proposal could not be received with suspicion, provided the Portuguese Minister was sincere in his appeal to righteousness. In order to finish with the serious divergences that had arisen, and were bound to arise, between the two countries, arbitration was almost a necessity. Besides, the Portuguese Government had to shape its acts in accordance with a set of con- 196 Portagtiese Monarchy siderations that made the task of settling this dispute still more difficult. To begin with, Republicanism, which had been quickened by the revolution of the 15th November 1889 in Brazil, which had resulted in the dethronement of King Carlos' great-uncle, Pedro 11, Emperor of Brazil, and the establishment of a Republic in that country, had profited by the confusion into which the country was thrown. Anyhow, insulted nationality was a pretence for an attack on the Throne itself. Then there was the pertinacity with which the Portuguese had clung to their traditions that were verified and confirmed by historical evidence. In a letter written by Luiz Mariano in 1624 at Tete, on the borders of Zambesi, there could be found references to a Portuguese expedition that had got so far as lake Nyassa. The original of that letter had been in the Archives of Goa in Portuguese India. The Portuguese explorer, Fr. Manuel Godinho, a Jesuit who had crossed these regions, confirmed in his book, Relagao do novo caminho que fez por terra e mar no anno de 1663, the discovery of the lake Nyassa by the Portuguese, ** who had discovered it whilst sailing down the river Shire." He had also written that "a fortress was created at A Friends' Quarrel i97 Mombasa in order to dominate that kingdom, forts were built at Sena and Tete (in the Zambesi), and the Kings of Pate Quiteve and Monomotapa submitted themselves to the Crown of Portugal." They could also evoke the proud memories of the martyrdom of Gongalo da Silveira, and point out the ruins of the Portuguese Church at Zumbo and convents situated between Trans- vaal and the Zambesi. And so convinced were the Portuguese of their historical rights to the region of the Zambesi and Shire — rights that were confirmed by the remarkable Chart of Africa, by J. B. Nolin, offered to Louis xvi in 1775, and even by the testimony of the famous English explorer, Richard Burton, who, in 1873, had acknowledged that Portugal was first to occupy the region of the Shire — that, believing that the Government was conceding such rights to England in the overture of a humiliating peace, they were getting more and more desperate. For the moment, therefore, the whole duty of the Government was to convince the nation that the aim of the Portuguese monarchy was not to humiliate the country. Hence the eagerness of Hintze Ribeiro to submit the matter to an impartial tribunal. And it is strange that Lord Salisbury himself, referring to the arbitration 198 Portuguese Monarchy system, should have once said that it ** would be an invaluable bulwark to defend a minister from the jingoes. It would be impossible for them to accuse him of having trifled with the honour of the country and with surrendering substantial advantages if he could say, ' Well, I submitted the matter to an impartial tribunal as provided by treaty, and, unfortunately, the decision went against us.'" However, those who cherished the not un- natural belief that peace and tranquillity would follow the negotiations that were started in London were cruelly disillusioned. The first convention following the ultimatuniy was signed on the 2oth August 1890. By this agreement the Portuguese had to accept the free navigation of the Zambesi, give up the kingdom of Barotsis, and consider the provinces of Mozambique as bounded to the north by the course of the Ruo and Shire and to the east by Mashonaland. The Portuguese Parliament, when summoned to dis- cuss that treaty, which convulsed the nation for a few months, vehemently opposed its provisions. There had been no reference made in that treaty to Manicaland, a territory, rich in mines, that had been administered by a Portuguese Governor who had been expelled by Mr. Colquhoun, A Friends' Qtcarrcl i99 Administrator of Mashonaland, and that territory, notwithstanding the protests of the Portuguese Government, had been usurped by the Chartered Company. Anyhow, that treaty, that was the outcome of six months of strenuous effort, caused the immediate downfall of the Government. One consequence of this anomalous condition of affairs was that it exposed the monarchy to its enemies. Suspicion had been worked up to fever pitch, and King Carlos had a stern ex- perience in finding a statesman whose qualities could be recommended to the confidence and regard of the people. The King eventually chose General Abreu e Sousa to form a ministry, that succeeded the overthrown Cabinet in October. The new Government succeeded, however, under circumstances far more propitious than had attended the two past Governments, in showing the impossibility of accepting terms such as were prescribed in the agreement signed in August. This resulted in a Modus Vivendi, signed on 14th November by Lord Salisbury and the Portu- guese Minister, that finally led up to the definite Treaty of June 1891, by which, besides the geographical delimitation which gave Portugal a part of territory contested to the north of the Zambesi, provision was made for the free navi- 200 Portagticse Monarchy gation of the Zambesi and the Shire, for the transit of British goods through Portuguese territories, for the construction of railways and telegraphs, and which contained a clause for "reciprocal rights of pre-emption in case either Power proposes to part with any territory in its own sphere of influence." Thus ended the most dramatic chapter in the modern history of Portugal, narrated only in the barest outline. CONSTITUTIONALISM : ITS DEATH PANGS KING CARLOS was summoned to the throne at one of the most critical moments of Portuguese history. Never before had a king come into the presence of such a great national crisis. Though the acute period of excitement following the ultimatum was almost over, new causes of conflict had emerged. That was almost natural. The ultimatum had reminded the Portu- guese that the nation, weak and sinking under her burdens, had lost her former prestige. They had borne patiently the loss of their commerce, the gradual disappearance of their few industries, and the fall of their liberties ; but this fresh wrong had stirred up indignation. All this had fostered an intense spirit of Republicanism and an aversion to the politicians in power. A proof of this had been afforded by the serious military and Republican rising at Oporto on the 31st January 1890. The change that had to come over the Govern- ment had indeed to be a great one. It had to 202 Porttigticse Monarchy modify completely the character and tendencies of the monarchical parties. They had to be an inspiring force in a movement of political re- generation in which there was work to do for every one who was animated by noble impulses. Yet the country was passing through the phases that are invariably evolved by half measures. It was evident that, between the views of the monarchical parties, there could be no possible compromise. One might say more than this. Instead of directing their forces to a moral purpose and moulding circumstances to the best advantage, they were sacrificing the greater interests of the nation to the lesser interests of their parties ; and with such elements of discord at work, King Carlos was to reign in Portugal. Finance, it has justly been remarked, is the ultimate test of administration. The grave and general upheaval of financial affairs in the very beginning of King Carlos' reign must have come like a warning to him whose business it was to watch the signs of the times. The ministry, presided over by General Abreu e Sousa, that was in power had had tremendous financial difificulties to cope with, and it had muddled through in its own way. The ordinary expenditure of the year 1890-91 was fixed at Constitutionalism 203 ;^9,76o,ooo and the revenue at ^9,310,000, but in addition to the deficit were added ;^59i,72ofor extraordinary expenses. Naturally, one would ask what these extraordinary expenses were. Improve- ment of the defenceless condition of the country, construction of railroads as demanded by public opinion, or public works ? No such thing. We will not stop here to question the insincerity of the Budget as sent up or insist on the recklessness with which public money was spent. This state of affairs, however, led to difficulties, of which the outcome was that, in March 1891, the Government had to summon Cortes for an extraordinary session to decide on a proposal with the object of consolidating the floating debt. The proposal was to grant the tobacco monopoly to a company that would furnish the funds needed for the conversion. That proposal, though followed by the resignation of the Ministers of the Interior and Public Works, was eventually voted. But though from this time forward the Govern- ment showed a considerable amount of legislative activity, the financial situation became worse than ever. The whole situation was characterised by a stagnation that arrested the continuation of public works and left the business interests of the 204 Portuguese Monarchy country almost in a state of chaos. This state of things was such that monometallism was renounced by the authority given by the Banco Luzitano to make its payment in silver. The country sank deeper and deeper into the bog of financial difficulties, and the Government had to make the most strenuous efforts to raise money. The Finance Minister had been given power to establish a monopoly of alcohol, matches, and petroleum in order to meet a deficit of half a million sterling anticipated in the Budget voted in June of that year — a measure that the despair of Portuguese financiers had injudiciously and oppressively imposed on the poorer classes of the country. To cut down expenses as much as possible a Royal Decree, signed on the loth November 1891, had done away with the lega- tions at Berne, Stockholm, Buenos Ayres, and Tangiers, and, in addition to the suppression of a good many consulates, Portugal was to be re- presented at Washington and the Hague by a Minister Resident. But this renunciation of diplomatic and consular representation abroad had signally failed as a means of improving the finances of the country. A still more striking manifestation of the great and severe crisis through which the country was Constitutionalism 205 passing had been afforded by the fact of Portugal having, at the close of the year 1891, been forced to negotiate with her foreign creditors for a reduction of the interest on the external debt, which, of course, brought into distressing prominence the real state of affairs. The distrust and lack of confidence in the Government was such that the foreign bondholders had gone so far as to demand the administration of a portion of the national revenue by a European commission ! General Abreu e Sousa's ministry was replaced in 1892 by that of Dias Ferreira, but the condition of Portugal showed no change, except for the worse. The ministry presided over by Dias Ferreira had Oliveira Martins, the great historian, for Minister of Finance. Dias Ferreira had ample work before him, calling for the exercise of the highest qualities of statesmanship. But things in the country were coming, or had already come, to a strange pass. Into the vicissitudes of that remarkable ministry's life it is impossible to enter here. Suffice it to say that Oliveira Martins, finding himself unable to meet the July coupons of the external debt, suddenly resigned, and Dias Ferreira, who, in addition to the Home Office, took up the Ministry of Finance, finding it im- possible to come to an understanding with the 206 Porttigtiese Monarchy Regeneradores and the Progressistas about the provisional arrangements of the external debt, tendered to the King the resignation of the Cabinet on the 20th February 1893. A financial situation of more dangerous possi- bilities could therefore hardly be imagined. The first trouble that arose under the new Regenerador ministry presided over by Hintze Ribeiro, whom the King had, after Dias Ferreira, called to his counsels, was the addition to the tax on trading rights which almost provoked a revolution in Lisbon. The financial strain, which was carried to a point at which an even more serious crisis appeared imminent, could not be relieved. In spite of the surprise like that in the Budget 1896-97, when the deficit was made to disappear and the Minister of Finance hoped to achieve this result by a reduction of the rate of interest upon the National Debt, the Government had not succeeded in balancing the Budget. All it had done was to disguise the deficit. But amidst these financial troubles, accompanied by scarcity of currency and derangement of domestic exchange, Portugal had to experience other troubles in her colonies. Gungunhana, a Zulu King, had raided for three years the Portu- Constitutionalism 207 guese territories in East Africa, until Mouzinho d' Albuquerque bravely marched into his camp, captured him, and brought the Zulu warrior to Portugal. Goa, the most loyal of Portuguese pos- sessions, had also witnessed, in 1895, the revolt of Maharatta troops. Unwilling to obey a ministerial decree, passed regardless of the religious prejudices of this race, ordering them to leave for Africa, they had left their barracks and occupied the fort Nanuz. The revolted troops achieved a brief ascendancy, but eventually surrendered to a better policy that was to gain once more their loyalty to the Crown ; and it fell to Dom Affonso, the King's brother, under whose command troops were dispatched from Portugal, to achieve the task. This revolt, however, derived politically some importance from the circumstance of the special appointment of Dom Affonso as Viceroy of India. The measures of true impartiality and real conciliation enforced by Dom Affonso did much towards lessening the bad influences of those Portuguese who were endeavouring to use that revolt as an argument in favour of their narrow and selfish policy. It was not therefore to be expected that, during this time of trial, much progress should have been made to improve morally and materially the con- 208 Portagaese Monarchy dition of Portugal. In these circumstances the chronic discontent of the Portuguese assumed a more acute form than ever. They were becoming disturbed at the hasty and ill-considered manner in which all legislation was being developed. The attempt at reforming the electoral system in 1895 had brought to light the fact that the ministry in power, in its overzeal for the Con- stitution, which depends for its life on the fluctua- tions of majority and minority, had cheated the Constitution itself. Another striking instance of this misplaced activity, this wish to secure the patrimony of power, was afforded by the request made by Hintze Ribeiro to the King to nominate a certain number of peers for life ; but the King having refused to grant his request, the Re- generador ministry presided over by Hintze Ribeiro had to resign in 1897 and make room for a Progressista ministry under Josd Luciano de Castro. Hintze Ribeiro had resigned, but he left behind him traces of his dictatorship. It was therefore only right that some of his dictatorial measures against the freedom of the press and for the dissolution of commercial associations should have been repealed by the new ministry in power. Constittitionalism 209 But already the position of the new ministry had become so intolerable that Jos6 Luciano de Castro had attempted to resign when Barros Gomes, a statesman of repute, separated from him — a separation which broke up the Govern- ment and precipitated a crisis. It was, however, Josd Luciano's good fortune to be able to form a new Government within three days of that event. But circumstances were not such as to make the Government's position a very easy one. The proposal of funding one-third only of the existing debt and definitely repudiating two-thirds and guaranteeing the existing and future debts by the customs revenue, which was not of a nature to satisfy the foreign creditors, and later the demand for an international financial committee by the German bondholders, had impaired the authority of the Government in the eyes of the nation. But the South African incident in 1900, when Sir Hugh Macdonell notified the Portuguese Foreign Minister that, under the treaty of 1891, the British Government claimed the right of passing troops through the Portuguese territory, added to the complications of the times. It gave rise to some of the most bitter controversies between rival parties and determined the resigna- tion of the Government that was represented to 14 210 Porttigtiese Monarchy have assumed undesired responsibilities. With the overthrow of the Progressistas, to which the Regeneradores had largely contributed, the hopes of Hintze Ribeiro, the new Conservative Premier, rose high. The programme of the new ministry, presented on 26th June 1900 to the Chambers, had insisted on the absolute need of comprehensive changes in the colonial system, promised new treaties of reciprocity with foreign countries, and struck the note of confidence for reasons too sufficiently obvious, saying that it would come to a settlement with the national creditors. Of course it may be questioned how much these promises were worth to Portugal. Anyway, the odds were hopelessly against the success of the new programme. The year 1901 found the Government most suddenly in presence of a situation in which a policy of conciliation was of vital moment. But to descend from the general to the par- ticular. The Brazilian Consul at Oporto, Senhor Calmon, had opposed the entrance of his daughter into a Portuguese convent. It was a personal affair which concerned nobody but the father of the girl. The scandal, however, leaked out and assumed such proportions that it culminated in Constittitionalism 2 1 1 an indiscriminate agitation carried by extremists of the anti-clerical party against all religious congregations in the country. The oldest con- troversies were raised, and there was a revival of religious animosities which was most unfortunate for the country as well as disastrous to the Govern- ment. Unhappily, too, the conduct of the mob was destined to increase its difficulties. Serious disturbances took place at Oporto. The Colleges of the Holy Trinity and Holy Family were pelted and attacked by an irresponsible crowd, which resulted in many deeds of violence and in some blood being shed. The Government, however, fought the situation with no better result than Don Quixote found in his battle with the windmills. It proposed en- forcing the law of 1834 as to the congregations. Jesuits, monks, and nuns of all denominations were ordered to disperse ; but the spirit with which that law was enforced was such that it did not excite foreign sympathy. The British Minister in Lisbon protested against the in- spection of Irish monasteries, and the Spanish Minister interfered on behalf of the religious congregations under his protection. The Re- generador Government had therefore to abandon the delusion that they could promote the welfare 212 Porttigtiese Monarchy of the nation as a whole by concessions to ex- aggerated claims of whatever party in Portugal. But the weakness of this Government became especially clear when, in 1902, it turned its atten- tion to the solution of the exceptionally complex financial problem. The essential feature of the situation which the Government had to face was to carry on successfully negotiations with the foreign holders of external debt, which was not beyond the range of possibility. But the convenio disclosed the desperate remedy for the financial condition adopted by the Government. The State had repudiated the full obligations of the public debt, half the debt being cancelled, and payment of three per cent, being restored on the balance. So clear and evident was this bankruptcy that symptoms of profound indignation were displayed in the various parts of the country by various groups and classes of population. Even the students of the University of Coimbra and the Higher Schools of Oporto carried their agitation so violently that their leaders had to be rusticated. This economic ruin led people to believe that the country could not rise again from many a year of bondage. The people, — illiterate to the extent of seventy-five per cent., — who were paying Constittitionalism 213 to the State more than their due, were conscious of the fact that the country, crushed by an ever- recurring deficit, was forced to borrow at ruinous rates. Their line of reason consequently involved two assumptions. The one was that the Government was administered for the benefit of the ruling classes and not for the ruled. The second was that the stern logic of the fact was entirely contrary to the many showy enterprises under- taken by Governments in Portugal, but which had little chance of success. Neither assumption could be disputed by those whose opportunities had allowed them to observe the actual condition of the country. The two legislative Chambers, the Peers and the Deputies, collectively called the "Cortes," had been elected since 1826 ; but the Parliament, which was to give the people a share in ruling their own destinies, had not fulfilled its obliga- tions. The parliamentary life may be said to have consisted in its members debating abstract themes with great eloquence, thus wasting session after session in stormy disputes and declamatory nothings — talking, as it were, against time ; and in the last few years its actions and its obstinate determination to oppose any scheme on party 214 Porttigacse Monarchy grounds rendered it necessary that it should be dissolved sometimes yearly, or twice a year. There were men of note and of ability still left in the Parliament, but its vital force was dying. Regarded as an instrument for bringing the most decided political capacities into the administration of public affairs, the Portuguese Parliament had been a failure. The Parliament was reduced to a name, their meeting to a formality. So deep rooted was the corruption in public life that even the number of Deputies assigned to the Opposition was generally a matter of arrange- ment. The political parties, therefore, known as the " Regeneradores " or Liberal Conservatives and the " Progressistas " or Democratic Liberals, to quote what the Times said in a leader, " neither regenerated nor made progress." ''They made arrangements between themselves, in virtue of which they shared the spoils of office in rotation — a practice so notorious that they were known collectively as Rotativos,'' These two parties, when in power, had identical methods of governing. They both stood re- sponsible for the bankruptcy and economic ruin of the country. The State had twice to repudiate the full obligations of public debt — in 1892, when the rate of interest was reduced from three to Constittctionalism 215 one per cent., and in 1902, when it was proposed to cut down by half the nominal value of the capital of the three per cent, debt and pay three per cent, on the remaining moiety. This is not all. For ten years — up to 1902 — no account had been paid without adding to floating or con- solidated debt. But one of the salient facts about this disastrous condition of affairs was that the Regenerador ministry that was in power from 1900 to 1904 had called, without success, during that period no fewer than four Ministers of Finance to solve the problems of the Exchequer. All the sources of national wealth had also been utterly neglected. Portugal is a country with immense resources. Possibly there is not a country in Europe which possesses such re- sources ; yet the Government had shown such small aptitude for turning them to good account. The production and cultivation of cereals had been so much neglected that, in spite of the country being fertile and well adapted for such cultivation, Portugal was under the cereal deficit, and special laws regulated this rdgime, the pro- tection given to the cultivation being such that pre- vented any further development. The agricultural depression had been such that the great bulk 216 Porttigtiesc Monarchy of population in 1896 came to depend for their subsistence on the 138,000,000 kilogrammes of corn imported in that year of destitution. The wine production, on which Portugal has so long depended, though it suffered much owing to the destruction of the vineyards by the phylloxera, was also in a critical state. The ravages oi phylloxera had no doubt sent up the prices of better qualities of wines. But the want of propaganda abroad and the competition of foreign wines had been so great as to preclude the Portuguese wine becoming an article for sale. All the advantages which the Portuguese wine possessed over other wines were also discounted to a certain extent by higher sea freights, diffi- culties in connection with shipping, and the absurd custom regulations, with the result that the merchants of Hamburg adopted the expedient of shipping their *'fine crusted port" to Portugal and again reshipping it to England. The necessity of technical education for the development of agriculture and industries was strenuously insisted upon in the most advanced countries, but Portugal, in her political excitement, had forgotten that she had industries. The reforms of the industrial and commercial studies which Emigdio Navarro, a great financier, sub- Constitutional ism 2 1 7 mitted in 1889, and which tended towards a revival of Portuguese industries, had not been proceeded with for want of funds. Thus for years manufacturers had never been allowed to flourish in Portugal. Meanwhile, the movement of Portuguese emigration itself brought forcibly- home to the nation the real state of affairs. Emigration had increased steadily all the while. We have only to look at the official tables of emigration to gain an adequate idea of the rate at which depopulation has proceeded, which, in proportion to the resources of the country and to its capital, has been appalling. As the period of general depression and local distress became acute, the vast exodus increased by degrees. Thus, in 1895, the number of emigrants amounted to 44,200 — a figure which exceeded by nearly 15,000 the number of the previous year. The next four years, however, showed that the number of emigrants fell considerably. But it was only a temporary change. In 1899 the official statistics gave 18,000 as the number of those who had left the country under the necessity of seeking another home. But from that point the tide that still flows unchecked rose with such rapidity that between 1 899 and 1 907 it increased as follows : in 1 90 1 to 20,500, in 1902 to 24,432, in 1904 218 Portagtiese Monarchy to 28,595, in 1905 to 34,220, in 1906 to 38,685, while in 1907 it rose to 41,950. Obvious inferences will be drawn from this simple statement of facts. It was not the case of removing a certain number of people to bring the population of the country to a reasonable level. Nor will any one suppose that it was an amputation of a morally damaged population, which, from its state of social disease, had to be performed for the good of the country. The fact was that Portugal had more mouths than food. The seasons of dearth, the fluctuations in trade, and the industrial progress that was indefinitely checked had condemned the labouring classes of the country to a chronic pauperism. The emigration was perhaps the result of influences, such as, for instance, an urgent demand for labour in the South American Republics, which have made themselves felt over the greater portion of Southern Europe ; but, taking all the facts into consideration, we can scarcely be far wrong in asserting that the causes mentioned above accelerated the tide of emigration in Portugal. Such were the conditions which met the eye of the most casual observer who cared to look into the circumstances of national life. The people could not, therefore, be expected Constitutionalism 2 1 9 to play much longer the part of an unconcerned spectator. The serious popular rising at Coimbra on the 1 2th March 1903 caused by a new tax on markets, and the not less serious disturbances on 1 6th June of that year in connection with the weavers' strike at Oporto, were already symptoms of a widespread discontent rapidly creeping into the masses of the country. The existing condition of things could not last; a crisis was inevitable. In 1904 the Re- generadores who were in power found themselves face to face with the people on the question of the tobacco monopoly. In 1891 the State, when raising a loan of ;^8oo,ooo sterling from a foreign company, had, in exchange, granted this company the monopoly of tobacco in the kingdom ; and this concession was to last till 1926 ; but the State had the right of altering and renewing the contract. The Regeneradores in 1904 were about to renew the contract when they met with a very strong opposition in both Houses. The reason was that another company of match- makers was competing for the monopoly of tobacco, and this company had every support from the Progressistas. A crisis followed, the Cortes were dissolved, and the two parties carried their party battles to such an extent as 220 Porttigticse Monarchy to convert the whole country into a region of strife and discord. The Progressistas, who, on the King's refusal of Hintze Ribeiro's unconstitutional request to prorogue the Cortes, had been returned to power, met with a violent opposition in the Cortes when there came for discussion the Bill which concerned the discharge of the obligations in- curred in 1 89 1 and guaranteed by the tobacco monopoly. The bitterness of political animosity was so intense that a decree, signed on the nth September 1905, was passed adjourning the Cortes to the month of January of the following year. In 1906, however, when the Cortes were con- voked, Josd Luciano de Castro, the Progressista Premier, found, to his great disappointment, that his ministry was defeated, which compelled him to demand a dissolution, which was once more granted to him. But rightly or wrongly the King, a few weeks later, called to office Hintze Ribeiro, the Regenerador leader, who, if I may be allowed the words, had the task of appealing to the country and obtaining a fresh mandate from the masses. No comment can add much to the significance of this fact. These events gave the Republicans an oppor- tunity to strengthen their position, and in the Constitutionalism 22 1 first elections that followed Bernardino Machado, one of the leaders of the Republican party, was elected Member of Parliament ; and his arrival at Lisbon gave rise to very serious and grave events, which even caused bloodshed. This intensified the situation, and Hintze Ribeiro asked the King's permission to assume dictatorship ; but the King having refused to grant his request, the ministry resigned. The two parties had proved that they were not adequate to meet the emergency. The country had reached so extraordinary a crisis that the last few years had been marked by breaches of party ties, committed by politicians in the presence of emergencies, in which the forces of each party had been strained in opposing the other. Poli- ticians who started away from that path, which was chalked out as the only one that was right, were hustled about by their political leaders in a way that was disconcerting to their self-respect. This had led to the formation of the new monarchical parties like the ** Regeneradores-Liberaes," under the leadership of Joao Franco, formerly a Re- generador ; the '' Nacionalistas," led by Jacintho Candido, also a Regenerador ; and " Dissentient Progressistas," led by Alpoim, who had been a Progressista. 222 Portttgtiese Monarchy Something had therefore to be done in the way of reform, or else it would increase the enthusiasm for Republican ideals and weaken the position of the Crown. Although the formation of the Republican party in Portugal dated back to 1870, when such well- known men as Latino Coelho and Theophilo Braga wrote to the Partido do Povo and Elias Garcia edited the Democracia, it had acquired strength as a party in 1890, when there arose a dispute with England over boundaries in Manica- land and Shire Highlands in Africa. The King unjustly stood answerable for the adoption of half measures by the Minister of the Crown in that critical situation ; and the order of the Garter, offered to King Carlos by Queen Victoria when the question at issue had been settled, gave the Republican accusations a superficial plausibility. The Republican party in Portugal was not a power in the country, but it was a power which was the dismay of parliamentary and municipal candidates of the monarchical parties. In 1904, for instance, the re-establishment, after two years of administrative tutelage, of an electoral munici- pality in Lisbon, had proved the strength of Republicanism, which, though suppressed by the Constitutionalism 223 Government on the surface, had made consider- able progress in secret. The much abused ** preventive censure," seizing Republican newspapers, breaking up its type, and other odious measures of repression adopted by the parties in power, had only revealed the fact that those entrusted with the government of the country did not possess that quick intuitive genius which seizes the occasion at great crises and adjusts the course of the State to it. All this had rudely shaken the confidence of the country in the wisdom and patriotism of the Rotativos. Besides, nothing was to be gained for the monarchy by the King hiding himself behind the deceptive promises which, every year at the opening of the Cortes, he in his speech from the throne had to make to the nation. Promises to develop the colonies, improve agri- culture, extend commerce,and balance satisfactorily the Budget were made in an optimistic tone with- out causing the least remorse to those politicians who had got into the habit of putting proposals through an indefinite number of stages without any likelihood of an ultimate decision. A party in favour of sanity and economy in public administration was therefore a necessity in Portugal. In these circumstances, it pleased the 224 Porttigticse Monarchy King to choose Joao Franco, the leader of the new party known as * Regenerador- Liberal," and call him to his counsels. Franco had before him a programme that promised to appeal to the ideal aspirations of the country, and his ascent to power on 19th May 1906 seemed to have marked the opening of a new era. In the Parliament he was immediately attacked by the Opposition for the choice of one of the ministers. He had chosen Shroeter for Minister of Finance ; but it happened that Shroeter was not a Portuguese, and he could not be a minister without altering the Constitution. The bent of Franco's mind was thus shown right in the beginning of his government. This tendency, thus early shown, explains how little he cared for the Parliament. Many, however, expected his personality to count in the work of political regeneration he had undertaken. It was not merely the case of new brooms being expected to sweep clean or govern- ments effecting impossibilities. Franco had pro- fessed publicly that he had returned to politics with his democratic instincts strengthened. To do away with corruption in public life became, therefore, his first duty. Thus for the time he a c c c e c « c C « C t, c C C fc c t DOM CARLOS, KING OF PORTUGAL (1889-1908) Constitutionalism 225 aimed at a reorganisation of the executive where the evil of corruption was not accidental, but settled. He proceeded to deprive the State parasites of all imaginary posts so infamously monopolised by them. The corruption was such that a gentleman appointed Minister of Portugal in China had for two years drawn ;^2400 a year without ever leaving Lisbon. Even ladies were found to be receiving public money, which had for years been paid to them for the imagin- ary task of searching female travellers as they passed through the custom - houses ! Franco's action certainly gave an impression of energy and an impression of efficiency. But the Government for the first three months did almost nothing. In the Parliament it met with the usual opposition on the part of the Republicans and Dissentient Progressistas. Two full months were spent in political discussions of the most violent character, which resulted even in discussing the person of the King and the letters, of a private character, which the King had written to Hintze Ribeiro with refer- ence to the events which happened in Lisbon in connection with the demonstration got up by the Republicans in honour of their leader, Bernardino Machado. Soon after, the strike of 15 226 Porttigtiese Monarchy the students of the University of Coimbra, that had brought the students and professors of that scientific establishment into serious collision, gave the Opposition a better opportunity of attacking the Government ; and both Houses took the students' cause into their hands. Franco at this stage thought he would weaken the Opposition by a reconstruction of the Cabinet, and he offered the Progressistas three posts in his own ministry ; but Jos6 Luciano de Castro, their leader, refused them flatly. At the General Elections ]os6 Luciano de Castro, in his efforts to crush his rival, Hintze Ribeiro, had agreed to an alliance with Joao Franco for all electoral purposes ; and the result of the elections was that seventy- three Franquistas, forty - three Progressistas, twenty-three Regeneradores, and four Republicans were returned. But once Franco was in power — perhaps to give his ministry a complexion that had to be more politically youthful — he ignored the fact that the game the Progressistas were playing had not yet been developed, and declined further help from them. These events gradually brought Progressista and Regenerador interests into closer approximation. On these considera- tions it is intelligible that the Progressista leader should have refused three posts in Constitutionalism 227 Franco's Cabinet. After this Franco tendered his resignation to the King, which was not accepted. Franco, however, was a man too hopeful and too anxious for the consummation of his plans. He presumed that no good could be expected from submitting any further questions to a vehemently distracted Parliament, and he assumed dictatorship, which he proclaimed in a most un- constitutional way. The Cortes were dissolved, and Franco announced, through the Diario Illustrado, the organ of his party, that the Bills which had been debated but not passed would nevertheless receive the force of law. He thus virtually disavowed the very principles which he had once declared to be essential to the govern- ment of the country. The representatives of the people, seeing that the liberties of the country had been attacked, made an appeal to the King, representing their case according to the laws of the land and by all Constitutional means. Jos6 Luciano de Castro, in the name of the majority of the Council of State, asked the King to grant him an audience to present a protest against the unconstitutional way the Cortes had been dissolved. But the King, little as he was prepared to tolerate any 228 Porttigttcse Monarchy interference with the policy of his "dictator," refused to listen to the advice of those whose Constitutional duty it was to advise him. He would not even see them in their official capacity. At the end of May 1907, delegates representing the majority of the House of Peers and the minority of the Chamber of Deputies asked the King to allow them to make personally a repre- sentation regarding the state in which the country had been thrown through the dissolution of the Cortes. The King, however, though he consented to receive them, ignored these claims for speaking in the name of the country. He merely undertook to inform the Prime Minister about their grievances. Soon after, a deputation from the municipal councils called on the King to protest in the name of the rural population — a deputation which the King pur- posely received in the presence of the Prime Minister. In June one hundred and three muni- cipalities boldly pressed their claims for a voice in the matter by sending in a protest to the King, which, however, did not prove successful. This made the people resort to other means. Meantime, the press, monarchical as well as republican, opened a vigorous campaign against the Government ; but Franco, who was too Constitutionalism 229 impatient of difference of opinion and too doggedly convinced of his own righteousness, censored and muzzled the press wherever adverse to the Government. The Constitution seemed so entirely annihilated already that it could hardly be considered an obstacle for Franco to pass such measures that could only be justified in extreme cases. These measures intensified the situation ; and it stood to reason that where the Marquis de Pombal, the dictator of King Joseph I, failed, Franco could scarcely hope to succeed amid the movements of a more hopeful and determined generation. But amidst all this the monarchy was anything but strong. The Republicans gathered fresh strength as the quarrel between the Ministerialists and the monarchical Opposition became acute. It enlisted adherents to Republicanism every day. Even the former President of the Chamber of Peers, A. da Cunha, deserted the monarchy to join the Republican party. The dictator not only trampled on the Constitu- tion in every possible way, but he even com- promised the King with the nation. King Carlos had to declare to M. Galtier, who represented the great newspaper, Le Temps, of Paris, and who interviewed him, his determination to sup- 230 Portagtiese Monarchy port the dictator. In this interview the King, taking the French journalist into confidence regarding the State affairs, spoke of the want of character in Portugal, which, in other words, meant that the nation over which he reigned was dishonest ! Imagine, then, the distress of mind which ensued almost immediately. The indigna- tion that raged throughout Portugal when Le Temps published the interview was great. After that interview people were at a loss to understand how the State could confound itself with the person of the Sovereign and the authority of the State centre in the person of the King. Here I may be allowed to quote the words of a great Chinese philosopher who said ** that the ills besetting mankind arose, not from man's neglect to do what is necessary, but because he does what is unnecessary." King Carlos confined himself to words, but his Premier continued to act. To humble all other parties monarchical or republican seemed to have been his wild dream. Specially anxious to hold in his hands the whole political and adminis- trative life of the country, a decree had been passed postponing the municipal elections, and just before Christmas a decree appeared reform- ing the House of Peers. He was re-establishing Constitutionalism 23 1 for that House, whose majority had protested against his dictatorship, the system of 1826, and had gone so far as to transfer its judicial functions to the Supreme Court. Thus the rights enjoyed for so many years by a political institution such as the House of Peers were set aside by a stroke of the pen ! Yet the facts of the case, though highly complicated, did not justify any such despotic attitude. But Franco had to be something different from what he had been in the past. Though with a mind of his own on the subject of current politics, he was nevertheless at heart the same Regenerador minister of 1894 who was the right hand of Hintze Ribeiro, in whose acts of political violence in pursuit of political ends he had had a large share. The manner in which Franco dealt with the Civil List and his concessions to the King had also been followed by increased discontent. That King Carlos had received large sums in advance from the Treasury on his Civil List had been made public by the Republicans. This, of course, called up associations which were in- consistent with the dignity of Royalty. How- ever, the King's debt to the Treasury was agreed between King Carlos and his dictator to be ;^ 1 54,000. The impolicy and injustice of such 232 Porttigtiese Monarchy an agreement were flagrant and exasperated the nation. ''This transaction," to quote Martin Hume, **was open to question, but the process by which the royal indebtedness was extinguished was more so still." ^ Not the least curious and suggestive side of this transaction were the following facts that deserved the special attention of that English critic : '* The royal yacht Amelia, which had been paid for by the nation and maintained as a vessel in the Portuguese Navy, was assumed to be the private property of the King, and its value — ;^6 1,200 — was credited to him when he ostensibly transferred to the nation the vessel for which it had paid. The balance of the indebtedness — ;^93,ooo — was extinguished by a similar process. Certain old palaces had been for years utilised for the public service as offices, barracks, and military academies. For these the King had received a rent, and on surrendering this usufruct for the future, the capitalisation of the same was assumed to be equal to ;^93,ooo, whereby the balance of the King's debt to the country was declared to be liquidated." This brings us to the very heart of the matter. The problem was not so much cancelling a debt ^ F/^ of which ;^i5,025,03i was classed as ordinary. It was not therefore sur- prising that the nation, conscious of the deficit that still continued and the fact that the con- solidated debt was rising every year, should have considered excessive the addition to the Civil List, done without parliamentary sanction. But Franco contended that he had increased the Civil List to free the Sovereign effectually from that influence which his predecessors had exercised over His Majesty. " How can any one reproach me with so just and necessary a measure ? " were the words of Franco to a French journalist who 234 Porttigtiese Monarchy had approached the dictator on the subject. " Was it not scandalous to see our King driven to run into debt and make terms with all parties in office ? What an unworthy sight for a self- respecting country to see her King. forced to shut his eyes to every abuse in order to get enough to live upon for himself and his family ! " ^ Such, however, was the indiscreet and compromising language used by Franco to justify himself. This state of affairs could not last for any time. Every provocation had been given by the Govern- ment to cause turbulence. The dictator, in the month of January 1908, had issued decrees sup- pressing papers and imprisoning those who were opposed to his policy. The Diario Popular, O Correio da Noite, and O Dia, organs of the Regenerador, Progressista, and Dis- sentient Progressista parties respectively, were by his orders suspended for thirty days. The Liberal and the Paiz had also met with the same fate. The fortress of Caxias and the State prisons were full to overflowing. Alpoim, the leader of the Dissentient Progressistas, had to take refuge in Spain to escape arrest for being implicated in a conspiracy. ^ " The First of February in Lisbon," by Jean Finot, Con- temporary Review^ ^March 1908. Constitutionalism 235 All these restrictions on the press and public meetings increased the unwillingness of the people to submit to Franco's dictatorship. But the dictator, with a recklessness positively criminal, was enforcing new measures of repression. Thus the King was made to sign a decree by which any political offender could be transported to Africa at a moment's notice. Imagine what would have been the result here in England in the reign of Charles ii, when political dissatisfaction was at its height, had those ministers called the ** Cabal " been given the power of transporting every person who was opposed to their policy ! The Diario do Governo of Saturday, the ist February, published the decree. But this law of "public security," the most arbitrary law Portugal had ever known, was too glaring an attack upon the liberties of the land to be received in silence. In the afternoon of that same Saturday the King and Queen, with their two sons. Princes Luis Filipe and Manuel, were expected to be returning from Villa Vigosa. The royal party was due at Lisbon at a quarter-past four, but, owing to a slight breakdown on the railway at Casa Branca, the ferry-boat Dom Luiz, in which the King and his family crossed from Barreiro to the 236 Porttigtiese Monarchy Terreiro do Pa90, did not get to the landing- place till after five. On leaving the boat the Royal Family was met by the members of the Cabinets and Court dignitaries. King Carlos seems to have had a presentiment of what was coming a little later. He asked Franco if it was safe for him and his family to drive through the streets of Lisbon. But the dictator spoke so confidently that the King relied more or less on the personal pledge given by his minister for the safety of the Royal Family. So far from taking the ordinary pre- cautions, Franco even allowed the King to enter, with the Queen and the Princes, a two-horse open carriage that was to drive them to the Necessidades Palace. As usual, crowds lined the royal route ; but amongst them there were some political fanatics who had come under the pretext of looking at the King, but in reality to imbrue their hands in royal blood. They carried loaded firearms, which were not noticed by the crowd or the police until the royal carriage was about to turn the corner of the Pra9a do Commercio up the street of the Arsenal, when a young man jumped up behind the vehicle and fired a revolver, hitting King Carlos in the left side of the neck. Seizing a Constitutionalism 237 bouquet presented to her a few moments before, the Queen vainly endeavoured to prevent the assassin from again firing by striking him in the face with the flowers. In spite of this courageous attempt, the murderer succeeded in pulling the trigger a second time, mortally wounding the King. A struggle ensued, in the course of which the assassin was killed by a police bullet. In the confusion a tall, black-bearded man sprang from behind the pillars of the arcade of the Ministry of the Interior and, pulling a gun from under his cloak, leapt towards the royal carriage and fired at the Crown Prince, who, notwithstanding that the Queen Mother heroically interposed her own person to save him, fell, struck by two bullets, one in the face and the other in the breast. The assassin was about to fire another shot when the police at once dispatched him. He was afterwards proved to be a certain Buiga, an ex-sergeant of cavalry and dismissed school teacher. More shots were fired, one of them slightly wounding Prince Manuel's arm. When the carriage was driven into the Arsenal, the King was dead and the Crown Prince died a few moments after. The policy of Joao Franco, which must be held 238 Porttigtcese Monarchy to have contributed to bring about the events which culminated in a tragedy, was thus brought to nought. Dictatorship was no doubt a necessity for Portugal, but it had to be assumed by a statesman of great prestige ; and great men are not accidents, and great works are not accom- plished in a few days. The dictatorship of Franco would have settled the affairs of the Government rightly had Franco not forsaken many principles which he intended to preserve in his choice of means in working out the end, and had not many of his difficulties been of his own creation. The forward policy as practised by Franco had erred not so much in its aims as in its methods. Instead of taming the spirit of revolution and converting it to his own purposes, Franco, to use the very words he spoke in an interview he gave to a well-known French journalist, ** was provoking manifestations in order to test the feelings of the people." These utterances supply a key to the events which led to the Lisbon tragedy. Although Franco is far from standing in the same light as other European dictators, he could not even justify his dictatorship by saying in the words of Cromwell : *' I did out of necessity undertake the business, not so much out of hope Constitutionalism 239 of doing any good as out of a desire to prevent mischief and evil." The assassination of the King and the Crown Prince stands as a proof of the political mistakes committed by Franco, which the country cannot easily forget or forgive. XI MEN AND PRINCIPLES TH E assassination of the King and the Crown Prince — a tragedy which turned the better elements of all countries against the revolution- aries — discredited the country before the eyes of the world. But with the tragic event vanished eighteen years of experience, and there mounted the throne a young king with no experience whatever, who had therefore to express his hopes that his counsellors would aid him to fulfil the duties of a Constitutional monarch. The young King, presiding at the first Council of State, said : ** I am without knowledge and experience, and I place myself in your hands, counting on your patriotism and wisdom." Interpret those words how you will, they speak volumes as to the spirit in which King Manuel ii ascended the throne. They show a young King with a goodwill to contribute some- thing of value towards the solution of a con-. fessedly difficult crisis. 040 c -c c c c c ,C c" <^V Jf/f \c^c c c^ c c «., c and JOAO FRANCO, "THE DICTATOR iM4 Men and Principles 241 Soon after his accession to the throne King Manuel ii published a general amnesty in favour of all political prisoners and abolished dictator- ship. On 7th February, the day before the funeral of King Carlos and the Crown Prince, all political prisoners under detention were set free, and the dictatorial decrees of the 20th June, the 2ist November 1907, and the 31st January 1908 were revoked. The decree of the 20th June was the one that had put the liberty of the press at the mercy of administrative authorities, and that of the 21st November had empowered the juiz da instrucfdo criminal to decide all political crimes. The third decree — and the most arbitrary of all — was, of course, that of the 31st January 1908, by which the Government could transport to Africa or expel from the kingdom any political offender. The decrees increasing the King's Civil List and reorganising the House of Peers were also repealed. The municipal councils that had been sup- pressed by the dictator were restored, and the so-called administration commissions appointed by Franco were dissolved. It was, of course, only right that the dictatorship which had dis- turbed all sources of national tranquillity should have been repealed, and it was next in order 16 242 Porttcgtiese Monarchy and equal in importance that most of the political prisoners who had withstood the oppres- sive measures of the dictator should have been released. The choice of a Ministry of Appeasement was also of no small importance to the monarchy, and Vice- Admiral Ferreira d' Amaral was charged to form a Monarchist Coalition Ministry. All the leaders of the Monarchist parties, on whose advice the King was now acting, had supported the idea and promised to sink all differences to work in a movement of political regeneration. Thus there was no difficulty in forming a Ministry of Concentration, which was presided over by Ferreira d' Amaral, who chose for him- self the post of Minister of Interior, the other Cabinet posts being distributed as follows : — Campos Henriques . Minister of Justice. Wenceslau Lima . . Minister of Foreign Affairs. SebastiIo Telles . Minister of War. ESPREGUEIRA . . . Minister of Finances. AuGUSTO Castilho . Minister of Marines and Colonies. Calvet de Magalhaes Minister of Public Works. But true political amelioration could be obtained only by establishing a truly representative Government. A new change had therefore to come over the spirit of parliamentary repre- Men and Principles 243 sentation. A restoration of the rights of free election was a preliminary indispensable to any reform. ** The value of the election," to quote the very appropriate words of Guizot, " lies in its proceeding from the elector, in its being a true choice on his part — that is to say, an act of judgment and of will."^ But the Portuguese politicians had to be something different from what they had been hitherto. The scandalous events which happened in connection with the General Election held on the 5th April were a flagrant example of that inconsistency of character and absence of definite political aims so predominant in Portuguese politics. The result of the elections was that sixty-one Regeneradores and fifty-nine Progressistas were returned as members of the new Parliament. Besides these, there had been elected seven Republicans, three Nacionalistas, and seven Dissentient Progressistas led by Alpoim, who was said to have been implicated in the revolu- tionary movement of the 28th January 1908. But the amusing feature of this new Parliament was that there were seventeen members who, as if they were clearing themselves from all ^ Vide History of the Origins of Representative Government^ ii. 247. 244 Porttigtiese Monarchy imputation of dishonesty or selfishness, were calling themselves " Amaralistas." The new Cortes had hardly met when the first trouble arose under the new ministry. The advances made in the late reign by the Treasury to the King's Civil List was the theme of a discussion that became so violent that the storm that was brought to light quickly convinced the young King that there was danger ahead. With an honesty that did honour to the young monarch, he caused the Diario de NoticiaSy a newspaper with a large circulation, to publish the list of sums advanced by the Treasury to the Royal House. This entirely altered the aspect of affairs. It was seen that since 1830 all monarchical parties had behaved alike. Thus the question of the advances made by the Treasury could now no longer be made a matter of caprice to be taken up or put aside according to the convenience of the historical parties. The task of reconstructing the political institu- tions of the country was therefore heavier than any other that could be laid upon Portuguese politicians, and its weight was aggravated by the fact that the Parliament which had to bear it was a Parliament without a purpose. Men and Principles 245 Such was the aspect of politics under the influence of a Ministry of Appeasement that, endangered by the defection of Julio Vilhena, the Regenerador leader, had to resign on 1 6th December 1908. The resignation of Amaral marked a crisis of tremendous moment to the Portuguese monarchy. He was succeeded by Campos Henriques, the Minister of Justice in Amaral's ministry, who had now to form a new Ministry of Concentra- tion. But the new ministry, unable to press forward a definite political programme, had to appeal to the Council of State to postpone the opening of the session from 2nd January till 28th February. Never was a situation more complicated ; never, I should think, more un- certain. The postponement of the meeting of the Cortes not only led to a meeting of protest, held on 22nd January by the Republican party, but it gave rise to such unreasonable excite- ment and public controversy in the monarchical ranks that King Manuel had to summon to the Palace the leaders of the monarchical parties. It was indeed tragical! It was a touching spectacle, especially to those who knew how it would end. A young king, anxious to work for the good of his country, 246 Porttigtiese Monarchy but appealing in vain to the good sense and patriotism of his supporters ! Thus all the prospects of the monarchical cause were marred by divided and jarring counsels. It became evident that the two historical parties, the Progressistas and the Regeneradores, were not willing to surrender the supremacy they had held for so many years ; and the new parties — and they were many — were also unwilling to level the barrier which divided them from others. The country shall be saved by us or ** not at all," seemed to have been the idea with which each and every one of the monarchical parties was possessed. And " pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." The session was opened on ist March. The debates were full of accusations, abuse, and re- criminations. Even duels were fought. But the situation remained one of peril. And to make matters worse, the treaty signed on 5th March, by which the Delagoa Bay Railway and the port of Lourengo Marques became attached to the systems of the South African Union, created further difficulties to the Govern- ment. That agreement was looked upon as a needless sacrifice of Portuguese interests in Africa. Men and Principles 247 It supplied the Opposition with an unequalled excuse for carrying on an agitation throughout the country. Thus the situation of the Campos Henriques ministry having become immensely complicated, the Cabinet had to make room for a new ministry, formed on nth April, with General Sebastiao Telles as Prime Minister and Minister of War. But ''this pilot who was to weather the storm " tendered his resignation after three weeks' experience. In these circumstances Wenceslau Lima be- came Prime Minister at the head of what was called a Cabinet " extrapartidario," this being thought the only way to avoid a dissolution of Cortes. But the refractory spirit of the Portu- guese Parliament would not endure such a change, with the result that the ministry, in a constant dread of downfall, lived from hand to mouth. Things and persons were now beginning to be seen in correct perspective. It was proved that it was in vain to hope for the co-operation of the monarchical parties in a movement of political regeneration — a movement so imperative in the interests of the nation. A king who, at this 248 Porttigtiese Monarchy decisive hour, could have played the part of a king might have changed the whole course of events that were to follow. The time was come *'to set the King above guardianship." Mettre le Roy hors de page — a;phrase applied to Louis xi. King Manuel had therefore to discover an honest man and give him a free hand in Portuguese affairs. It was the only way to untie or cut the Gordian knot of tangled politics in Portugal. He might have failed in his patriotic attempt to destroy the political activities concentrated in the hands of a few cliques. But the sober opinion of the country — the opinion which is not led or misled by mere demagogic clamour or journalistic charlatanism — would have done justice to the King. He would have certainly revived in many the decayed instincts of loyalty to the Throne. And history would have at any rate accredited him with an honest and, perhaps, last effort to redress the balance of power between himself and his subjects. But King Manuel lacked good counsel. The opportunity, at all events, was lost. In December 1909 the King called to power a Progressista ministry under Beirao, which held office for six months. This return to the old and vicious system of *' rotativismo " struck Men and Principles 249 the Portuguese monarchy with moral impotence to stem the rising tide of revolution against the Throne. In such a strait the regime also found itself face to face with the people on the scandals of the **Credito Predial," in which were involved the names of some of the prominent politicians in both historical parties. The mass of evidence supplied by the Republican party could not be pooh-poohed or explained away. The members of the Financial Board of this Bank were accused of embezzlement. Although the Credito Predial had very liberally paid eight per cent, to the shareholders, its administration had not been altogether so gracious. It had, for fifteen years, been paying dividends out of capital. Cancelled shares, valued at five million francs, had been re- issued and put again into circulation. Accounts were found to have been falsified. Thus an interested clique, after deliberately ruining the finances of the nation, had wrecked this Bank founded in 1864. But, strange coincidence, when the whole fraud was disclosed, Jos6 Luciano de Castro was the Governor of the Credito Pre- dial. In the arena of national affairs this veteran leader of the Progressistas, who were now in power, had been a prominent figure for 250 Portagtiese Monarchy over half a century. The most serious charges were made against this public man. He had therefore to be tried and, if found guilty, to be arrested, banished, or imprisoned. Yet, in spite of all this, the optimism of Jose Luciano de Castro and his followers was unshaken. The position of the Progressista ministry under Beirao, however, was shaken ; but, worse still, the cause of the monarchy and of law and order was also considerably damaged. This was the real state of affairs when King Manuel was riding in the great procession of kings who were accompanying, to their resting-place, the remains of the great "Peacemaker." On his return to Lisbon, King Manuel was asked by Beirao to authorise the dissolution of the Cortes. But the King called the Re- generadores under Teixeira de Sousa and gave the new Premier a special dissolution, which he had already denied to the Progressistas. This action on the part of the King took the monarchi- cal parties by surprise. It gave a great shock to the great body of monarchists, who thought the old equilibrium was seriously disturbed, if not destroyed. This feeling was the more unavoidable as the Government was now in con- spicuously feeble hands. Teixeira de Sousa Men and Principles 251 was not credited either with sufficient strength of character or sufficient power in Parliament. This led to a monarchical coalition to oppose the Government. Its strength was so great that the Government had to be dependent on the goodwill of the Dissentient Progressistas for its existence. In other words, Teixeira de Sousa had to be in open alliance with a party led by a politician whose name had been involved in the conspiracy on the 28th January 1908, and who, though he escaped arrest by taking refuge in Spain, had been unable to emerge from the cross-examination to which his character had been submitted. But once Teixeira de Sousa called Alpoim in aid of his own ambitions, he had to pledge himself to enforcing laws against religious congregations. In view of subsequent events, it is difficult to say whether he contem- plated seriously carrying out his promise or if he only meant to fool his supporter in the usual way. Anyhow, helpless to obtain his purposes by these means, the new Premier resorted to electoral corruption. This same man who had once denounced the Portuguese electoral law as "fraud" was now not only flattering and bribing the masses, but also distributing official positions by lot to gain popularity and votes ! When the 252 Portagtiese Monarchy 28th August — the day fixed for the elections — came, the Government was in its element. It destroyed votes in more than one borough where the Opposition had a majority, and resorted to all methods of violence to gain the elections. The frauds practised by the Government agents were so great that the returns for the boroughs of Lamego, Guarda, Braga, Castello Branco, Leiria Santarem, and Faro had to be contested. But amidst all this weakness and confusion there was one force steadily pressing forward to a definite aim. It was the force of Republic- anism that was obtaining ascendancy in the politics of the country. In spite of the electoral system, with its anomalies and iniquities, the Republicans had succeeded in returning fourteen members to Parliament, Lisbon alone having placed the Republican list at the head of the poll. There was no denying that Republicanism had made enormous strides within the last two years, which assuredly was the logical conse- quence of the quick kaleidoscopic changes of policy of the five ministries that were in power during King Manuel's short reign. It is there- fore interesting to call attention to the following figures : — In 1908 the number of votes obtained by the Men and Principles 253 Republicans in Lisbon had been 13,074, and those obtained by the Monarchist Coalition were 10,982, the Republicans having gained a majority of 2092 votes. In 19 10 the Republican votes amounted to 15,104, and those of the combined monarchical parties to only 9108. The Re- publicans had thus in two years increased the majority to 5996. No comment can add much to the eloquence of the figures. This Republican victory was therefore, with some reason, described by them as " a notice to quit, served upon the monarchy." The time had arrived when the dullest and the most bigoted mind had to perceive that monarchical Portugal had seen a writing on the wall that was not hard to decipher. Yet at this supreme moment the false supporters of monarchy were busy in fincjing out the party manoeuvres of Teixeira de Sousa. And on- slaughts of the bitterest kind were hurled at the young King by their press — especially by the Correio da Noite, the Progressista organ — for no other crime than that of maintaining Teixeira de Sousa in power. A more gratuitous insult never was offered to a king. He was accused by them of " selling " the monarchy to the Re- publicans, which, no doubt, he unconsciously did 254 Portttgtiese Monarchy by listening to the advice of those who had taken an oath to be at the service of a principle, but who really were at the service of their own interests. Here I may be allowed to quote a few lines from the ** Lusiads," which bear very aptly on the point — "Oh quanto deve o Rei, que bem govema, De olhar, que os conselheiros, ou privados De consciencia e de virtude interna, Ede sincero amor sejam dotados ! Porque, como este posto na supema Cadeira, pode mal dos apartados Negocios ter noticia mais inteira, Do que Ihe der a lingua conselheira." (Canto VIII. E. 54,) ^ And thus the curtain fell upon the great monarchi- cal drama, on the 5th October 19 10. * " Oh, how a king that governs well should see That counsellors, and those more intimate, With love sincere and endowed should be With conscience and purity innate ! For, as he throned sits in majesty. Of matters far removed, affairs of State, But little more can he be made aware Than what the official tongue may choose declare." (Translation by J. J. Aubertin.) BIBLIOGRAPHY AcADEMiA DE wSciENCiAS DE LisBOA. — Documcntos Arabicos para a historia Portugueza copiados dos originaes da Torre do Tombo e vertidos em Portuguez. Lisboa, 1790. Collecgao de noticias das nagoes ultramarinas que vivem nos dominios portuguezes. (181 2-41.) Collecgao de monumentos ineditos para a historia das conquistas dos Portuguezes em Africa, Asia, e America. (1858-93.) Adam, Mme Edmond. — La Patrie Portugaise. Paris, 1896. Andrade Corvo, J. DE. — Estudos sobre as Provincias Ultramarinas. 4 vols. Lisboa, 1883-87. 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ToLBORT. — On the Portuguese settlements in India. (Proceed- ings of the Asiatic Society in Bengal, June-July 1874.) Vascon cellos, Ernesto de. — As colonias Portuguezas. Vasconcellos Abreu, G. de. — Passos dos Luziadas. Memoria. Lisboa, 1892. Vertot, Rene Aubert Sieur de. — Histoire des Revolutions de Portugal. Paris, 1689. Vezeley, Rod de. — Le Portugal politique. Paris, 1890. Villa Franca, Conde de. — D. Joao i. e a Allianga Ingleza. Lisboa, 1884. VoGEL, Ch. — Le Portugal et ses colonies. Paris, i860. Waller, H. — Nyassaland. Great Britain's case against Portugal. 1890 (?). Walpole, Spencer. — History of England from the conclusion of the great war in 1815. 6 vols. 1890. Printed by Morrison & Gibb Limitbd Edinburgh r>^ X r 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. RENEWALS ONLY— TEL. NO. 642-3405 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. REICTD trtNt ID APR 8 19701 \, MAR 2 1977 ^^p p,p jjjj_ g g ,gg^ LD21A-60m-6,'69 (J90968l0)47e-A-32 General Library University of California Berkeley ./ 228514 /