only did the separation take place some years before the death of John VI., but there were actual hostilities and subsequent treaties of reconciliation between the two independent states. But as if to remove even quibbles of this nature, and to bring the case within the express letter of the laws of 1640, King John had not only, on his own accession to the crown, in 1815, erected the state of Brazil into the dignity, pre-eminence, and title of a kingdom,' but before he finally consented to the treaty of separation in favour of Pedro, he effected in his own person the separation of the crowns, and assumed and bore the double title of King of Portugal and Emperor of Brazil, and having done so, he then conveyed to Dom Pedro the latter title and the sovereignty of that empire. And his treaty with Dom Pedro distinctly states and recognizes that he, Dom John VI., was Emperor of Brazil, and was to bear the imperial title for his life ;-thus fulfilling to the very letter the provisions of 1640, for Dom John thus became possessed of two separate dominions-the larger of which then devolved on his elder son, Pedro, while Portugal became vested in the younger, Miguel.

This is so clear that it may be asked, why then on the death of John VI., in March 1826, Dom Miguel did not immediately ascend the throne? The answer is easy. By a series of family squabbles and political intrigues, Dom Miguel had been sent out of Portugal in May 1824, and had been for near two years in what may be called custody at Vienna.

He was originally conveyed, under pretext of going on his travels, on board a Portuguese frigate, from the Tagus to Brest, and thence escorted to the Austrian capital. During his residence in Vienna he was kept under restraint, and induced to become a party to acts which would never have met his concurrence if he had enjoyed the agency of his own free will-if he had been made acquainted with his own reversionary rights, or even aware of what was going on in Portugal. He experienced indeed the polite attentions of the Emperor Francis, but he was nevertheless restricted, and allowed no intercourse with his friends or relatives at home-his countrymen were refused access to him, and all his movements diligently watched.'-Walton's Reply, p. 86.

Dom Miguel was, when he was thus escorted' to Vienna, only twenty-two years of age, and it is one of the complaints against him that he had been very ill educated; it would not therefore be surprising if he were ignorant of rights arising out of points of ancient law, which it was, in the sequel, evident that even the Austrian and British cabinets understood very imperfectly-if, indeed, they were at all acquainted with them. But whether Dom Miguel fully understood his legal position or not, it is quite evi

dent

dent that a kind of prisoner at Vienna-he had no opportunity or means of vindicating his rights, or of resisting any conditions, however unjust, which might be imposed upon him.

6

In this state of things, the official account of Dom John's death reached Brazil on the 25th April, 1826; on the 26th the Emperor Pedro assumed, in the city of Rio Janeiro, the title of King of Portugal; on the same day he created seventy-seven peers to form an upper house, and issued an order for assembling the Cortes; and, on the 29th, he proclaimed the constitutional charter of Portugal, and on the 2d of May abdicated the throne, and, by his own mere authority and decree, constituted his daughter, Dona Maria, Queen of Portugal. My mouth,' said Jack Cade, shall be the parliament of England'-' My mouth,' said Dom Pedro, 'shall be the cortes of Portugal!' And this assumption of despotic authority over a distant people-this disposal, by Dom Pedro, at his own mere will, of the crown of Portugal, is hailed by all the Liberals in Europe as a most laudable and constitutional proceeding! But this extravagant attempt waз not merely an unconstitutional assumption of authority on the part of the Brazilian emperor-it covered a fraudulent design-he never intended that his daughter should reign in Portugal, but put her forward to keep the throne open for himself whenever he should be able to escape from the precarious sovereignty of Brazil, of which he already began to feel the uncertainty and the danger. The European powers saw through this trick, and in their anxiety to defeat it by catching him in his own springe, they hastened to confirm his abdication and to acknowledge Dona Maria; and, we believe, in ignorance of the Portuguese constitution and the right of succession, Prince Metternich obliged Dom Miguel to accept the constitution as the price of his enlargement.

But even before Dom Miguel had left Vienna, some insight seems to have been obtained, both by himself and the Austrian cabinet, as to his real position; for he made, as we shall see presently, a reservation of all his personal rights, and the Austrian negociator settled that he was to be regent of the kingdom till Dona Maria should come of age; and that when that period arrived he should become her husband; the parties having been already solemnly affianced at Vienna. Thus, it was endeavoured, in fact, though in a circuitous way, to compensate the injustice of Pedro's unconstitutional constitution, and to confer on Dom Miguel the real and substantive royal authority: and is it not a little strange that those who were willing thus to confer upon him the supreme power, under the name of regent and husband of the queen, should have all of a sudden-discovered that he is such a monster as to be totally unworthy to exercise the same

power

power under his own regal and legal appellation? The title is different, but the functions and the man are the same.

However, at last Dom Miguel was allowed to return to Lisbon; and assumed the title and duties of Regent. But the Portuguese people had never acquiesced in the invasion of their ancient laws and national rights by the acts of the Brazilian monarch. Sir Frederick Lamb, our minister, writes,

On the days immediately succeeding his landing, cries of "Long live Dom Miguel the First!" were heard..... His Royal Highness is incessantly assailed with recommendations to declare himself king, and reign without the (Pedroite) Chambers-that it entirely depends. on his will to do so; as the Chambers will offer no opposition, and the measure will be popular with the great majority of the country.'-Parl. Papers, No. 14.

The regent rejected this summary process; but convoked the Cortes-the ancient constituent authority of the realm; and almost the first act of that assembly was to decree the nullity of Dom Pedro's charter, and to confer on Miguel the title of king, to which, as they stated, the institutions of the country entitled him -instead of that of regent, which he derived only from foreign courts and the Portuguese people ratified (says one party) with joy, acquiesced in (says the other) with silent regret, the decision of the Cortes.

We deal not with impressions and opinions, and pretend not to measure the degrees of popular joy or regret, nor even to decide how far the Cortes spoke the sentiments of the nation. All our information on these points is favourable to Miguel; but we build nothing on mere opinions-we are stating facts. Dom Miguel was, as clearly as law can speak, already king de jure-the voice of the constitutional authority, the three estates of the realm, and the assent of the nation, made him king de facto; and we think there needs no other evidence that he has the people with him, than the avowal which has been so loudly and so incautiously made, that the recall of foreigners from Pedro's service would be ruin to Pedro's cause, and that a strict neutrality would be the most certain means of insuring Miguel's success-it being beyond all question, that if Miguel be dethroned, it can only be by foreign force. Whether, therefore, we appeal to the old doctrine of hereditary right, or to the modern principles of popular election, we may safely ask, what monarch in the world can show better titles? Was the voice of our Convention Parliament that elected King William less suspected of partiality than that of the Cortes?-and was the majority of the people of England more favourable to our Revolution than that of Portugal appears to be to Dom Miguel's restoration?

In what does the de facto sovereignty of Dom Miguel differ from that of Louis Philippe ?-Is it invalidated by his happening to have also the right de jure? Yet he is branded as an usurper by those persons with whom, in other cases, to be an usurper is the highest claim to approbation and confidence. But he is, it is said, a monster in private life. We know not what proofs of his monstrosity can be adduced-we only know that we have as yet seen none; and that, in the most unfavourable accounts which we have ever met of his manners or his morals, he has held only a second place to his brother Dom Pedro-the idol of all the censurers of Dom Miguel.

But one damning fact, it seems, we have against him-he is a perjurer-he swore allegiance to a constitution, on the overthrow of which he has ascended to power. But let us be allowed to observe, in extenuation of this grave imputation, that the alleged oath was taken by him probably in ignorance, and certainly under duresse; and all moralists admit, that engagements made in ignorance or under restraint are invalid. But in this case we need not have recourse to the casuist or the moralist, for Dom Miguel did, before he entered into his engagement at Vienna, distinctly save and reserve his own personal rights, whatever they might be. This appears by the Protocol of the Conferences at Vienna, Oct. 20, 1827, where it is stated, that it was proposed by the Portuguese ministers, and even by the Court of London, that a reservation of Dom Miguel's personal rights should be inserted in the instru ment by which he was to accept the office of regent;' but the protocol goes on to state,—

That Dom Miguel having already explicitly reserved ALL HIS RIGHTS in the letter in which he had transmitted his oath to the charter, a second reservation would at present be superfluous.'-Parl. Papers,

No. 15.

Thus it is admitted, that the oath of allegiance was accompanied and qualified by the reservation of all Dom Miguel's rights; and thus falls to the ground even this, the strongest, and indeed the only plausible personal imputation which has been made against Dom Miguel. But though we have destroyed the argument, we cannot pass over, without notice, the strange inconsistency of those who used it.

What if he had inserted no such saving clause? Did not Dom Pedro take a voluntary oath of allegiance, and renew it afterwards in letters of his own blood,' and then break it, not under new and unforeseen circumstances, but under the very state of things which the letter written in blood contemplated? Did not Louis Philippe swear allegiance to Charles X. ?-did he not subsequently accept from his hands the office of Lieutenant-General of

the

the Kingdom?-did he not, in breach of both these engagements, ascend, as sovereign, the throne to which he had sworn allegiance as a subject? Have those who are so tender about the conscience of Dom Miguel ever made the slightest difficulty in acknowledging the king of the French? M. de Talleyrand swore to two constitutions under Louis XVI.- to a couple, we believe, under the republic-to the First Consul-to the Emperor-to Louis XVIII.- to Charles X.-to Louis Philippe-in short, as has been quoted as a mighty good joke, thirteen in all!' and yet M. de Talleyrand and his fellow-labourers are the persons who cast stones at Dom Miguel. For ourselves we care not a fig about Dom Miguel or about Dom Pedro, nor would we cast our old pen into the balance between them personally--and though we certainly wish that the ancient Portuguese constitution, and the rights of the Portuguese nation, should have fair play, and that ultimate success may attend the right, on whichever side it be (and we think, for the reasons we have stated, it is on Dom Miguel's), our first and greatest, and, indeed, only anxiety is, that the character of our own country should stand fair and clear, and that while we profess neutrality between the parties, our neutrality should be real and honest-creditable to our national integrity, even though it were (which it could not be less favourable to our national interests than the shuffling, skulking, and underhand partiality which our ministers have practised.

This, and no more than this, was, as it appears to us, the object which influenced the Duke of Wellington, and the majority of the House of Lords, who concurred with his grace in the vote of the 3rd of June-a vote which-important in itself, as regarding our foreign policy and public faith-has become a thousand times more so by its effect on our internal relations-by its having been made the occasion of advancing, with an audacity and virulenceheretofore flimsily concealed-doctrines, aye, and hopes and provocations, wholly destructive of the very foundations of our constitutional system; it is the recent and alarming avowal of such designs that has led us to enter so much at large into the Portuguese question, though it be only the staff on which the standard of sedition has been raised, and induces us to go a little further into, what appear to us to have been the more immediate motives and objects of the Duke of Wellington's motion.

Dom Pedro landed at Oporto early in July, 1832, and has not yet made an inch of way in the country, nor obtained the slightest countenance from the people; and it is notorious that he could not have maintained for a week the civil war which desolates the unhappy city of Oporto and its neighbourhood *, and which distracts

*We find in the Times of the 24th May, a statement, founded on letters from

Oporto,