Chapter V: The Nineteenth Century

[Sidenote: [1822-1900 A.D.]]

Immediately after the proclamation of the Constitution of 1822, the Austrian and Russian ambassadors had taken their departure and now that intervention in Spain had been definitely determined on by the Congress of Verona, one of the queen’s adherents, the count of Amarante, raised the standard of revolt at Villa Real, on the northern bank of the Douro in the province of Tras-os-Montes, where the family of Silveira, to which he belonged, possessed estates. The rebellion was made in the name of absolutism or, as the phrase went, in the name of regeneration. The enterprise did not succeed, and the insurrectionists were driven across the Spanish border, though still hoping for the support of the French who had now arrived on the scene. This hope was delusive, for the duke of Angoulême and his government had to consider the susceptibilities of England. That power, already provoked by the treatment of Spanish concerns at the Congress of Verona, looked distrustfully at the development of events in the peninsula, and took a special interest in Portuguese matters; only the regency at Madrid gave them as much assistance as possible.

[Sidenote: [1823-1826 A.D.]]

But there was no need for direct interference. The new Portuguese constitution had not effected what it had promised; long before this the fickle humour of this passionate, ignorant, and idle people had veered round. In particular the party opposed to the constitution had successfully worked upon the troops and the liberal cause had no one, no regular party, and only a few individual men in whom reliance could be placed. Thus in May, 1823, Dom Miguel was able openly to declare against the constitution. He withdrew from the capital, collected troops, and soon that same Sepulveda who had been one of the principal instigators of the revolution of 1820 marched to the prince’s headquarters at Villafranca at the head of several thousands.

Thither on the 30th of May the king himself was conducted by mutinous troops, and from thence on the 3rd of June issued a proclamation in which he declared the “infamous cortes” dissolved and the “pure monarchy” established. Two days later he returned, an absolute monarch, to the capital he had left as a constitutional ruler. Of the members of the dismissed cortes a number had escaped to England, though the king himself nourished no thoughts of vengeance. The adherents and promoters of the counter-revolution were rewarded: Count Amarante, for instance, was made marquis of Chaves; the cloisters were restored and their property was given back, a new ministry was formed under Count Palmella and a junta appointed to indicate those dispositions of the cortes which were incompatible with the monarchical principle. For a time Dom Miguel, who had been appointed commander-in-chief of the army, was praised throughout Europe as the hero of the reaction.

On the 18th of June Queen Carlota also returned to Lisbon. This infamous woman detested her husband, who on his part had good reason to dread her fury which stopped at nothing. She was now bent on raising to his place her son Miguel who promised to be a prince after her own heart. A system of monarchical terrorism according to the ideas of this worthy pair was impossible so long as the mild Dom João was reigning; the utmost that could be managed was a wretched assassination, like that of which the king’s moderate counsellor, the marquis of Loulé, was the victim; the reins had therefore to be snatched from him by a _coup d’état_.

On the 30th of April, 1824, Dom Miguel caused the leaders of the moderate party to be arrested. The king’s minister, at whom the blow was really aimed, found time to escape on an English man-of-war which lay at anchor in the Tagus. Thither on the 9th of May the king, who had little confidence in his unnatural son, also fled, being assisted by the English and French ambassadors. But this time the overstrained bow broke in the hands of the absolutist party. They had forgotten to reckon with one factor on which they were accustomed to count too securely. The common people of the capital regarded their sovereign with something like idolatry; and when, from his place of refuge, the king disclosed the criminal designs of those who should have stood closest to him, Miguel found himself suddenly forsaken by all and threatened by many, so that nothing was left him but to go himself to his father and implore his pardon. He was now for a time held in custody on the English vessel.

His “inexperienced youth” might be made a pretext for securing his pardon, for he was indeed, although a practised sinner, only twenty-two years old; but it was thought expedient to send him to travel abroad. He betook himself through France to Vienna, to prepare himself, under Metternich’s eye, for a subsequent continuation of his rôle. His mother was banished to a cloister which suited her but ill; she resisted, under the pretence of illness, and is said to have even taken the last sacraments to prove her sickness. The question of the form of government was then so far settled that on the 4th of June, 1824, the king, acting on English advice, granted a constitution by which the cortes were re-established in their ancient form and division into three estates, the cortes of Lamego, as they were called from their place of assembly. The country now remained undisturbed till the king’s death, which took place on the 10th of May, 1826, and placed the two thrones of Portugal and Brazil to a certain extent at the disposal of his eldest son Dom Pedro, who was conducting the government in Rio de Janeiro.

PORTUGAL RECEIVES A NEW RULER AND A NEW CONSTITUTION

[Sidenote: [1826 A.D.]]

But to hold them both had become an impossibility since the events of 1820, and a treaty effected through English mediation in 1825 had expressly provided that the two crowns should never again be united on one head, thus confirming the work of the Brazilian cortes of 1822 which declared the country’s independence of Portugal. On the 23rd of April, 1826, the new ruler granted the Portuguese an extremely liberal constitution, the _Charta de ley_ and renounced his European throne in favour of his daughter Maria da Gloria. He endeavoured to counteract the danger to which her claims might be exposed from his younger brother, Dom Miguel, by assigning the child, then only seven years old, as wife to the uncle who was seventeen years her senior and by making the validity of his own resignation depend on the condition that Miguel should swear to the _Charta_ and accept the marriage; until this should be completed Pedro’s own rights were reserved, and since owing to the difference of age between the couple the marriage could not take place for some time, he intrusted the government to his sister Isabella Maria as regent.

She proclaimed the new constitution, which was sufficiently liberal; in it the king retained only a certain power of intervention and arbitration, with no immediate influence on legislation; but liberality in the constitution was a very doubtful advantage in a country which was still so unripe for freedom, and an article which guaranteed freedom of religious worship roused the spiritual caste, who had no difficulty in representing to the ignorant country people and the numerous class of petty rural nobility whose interests were compromised by the new _Charta_ that the new constitution was a work of the devil. However, a first attempt at a rising by the marquis of Chaves was suppressed, and in 1826 the regent was able to open the chambers.

But, supported by the apostolic party in Spain, Chaves returned. A formidable rebellion arose simultaneously in the north and south and gained such alarming proportions that the regent felt herself compelled to call in the aid of England. And this time not in vain. On Friday evening, December the 8th, 1826, the English government received the despatch. George Canning, the guiding spirit of that government, had long since declared that he would suffer no Spanish intervention of any sort in the country so long allied to England; on the 11th the regiments under General Clinton were on the march to their places of embarkation, and on the 12th the great minister made that great speech in the lower house which echoed throughout the world and lent to events in that remote corner of the continent, in themselves of little significance to the destinies of Europe, a far-reaching importance much above their immediate value.

Canning made use of the occasion to justify his whole policy--a peace policy, but one which must yield to treaty obligations entered into towards a country long allied with England; the contingency provided for by the treaty had now arisen and it would be a pitiful quibble to say that this was not a case of Spanish intervention because the troops which had risen against the legal government of Portugal were Portuguese: “They are Portuguese troops, but they are armed by Spain. We will not uphold by force or against the will of the country the constitution which Portugal has given herself, but neither will we permit others to overthrow it by force and against the will of the country.” His words were meant to alarm and warn the Spanish government; but they also alarmed all those who had long been forcibly intermeddling with the internal politics of other states in behalf of principles opposed to liberty and friendly to absolutism.

[Sidenote: [1826-1832 A.D.]]

Canning pursued his policy with moderation. He showed the strength of a giant without using it in a giant’s fashion. On the 1st of January the English army corps under Clinton landed at Lisbon, and eleven English ships of the line cast anchor in the mouth of the Tagus. The news of their arrival sufficed to prevent the further spread of rebellion. The marquis of Chaves with ten thousand men stood ready for battle on the way to Coimbra. The constitutional troops, about seven thousand in number, marched against him; on the 9th of January a battle was fought which lasted till darkness fell. But in the night the news of the approach of the English spread amongst the Miguelites; this was enough to scatter their army. The English had no need to take action. Their mere presence facilitated the subjection of the rebels by the constitutional generals, Saldanha and others, and the Spanish government, which had understood Canning’s speech, disarmed those who thronged across the border and delivered their weapons to the Portuguese authorities.

DOM MIGUEL SEIZES THE POWER (1827 A.D.)

Thus far England had interfered in response to the queen-regent’s request for aid. Meantime Dom Miguel had taken the oath to the constitution, and had been betrothed to his niece; on the 5th of July, 1827, Dom Pedro appointed him regent of the kingdom. On the 22nd of February, 1828, after having presented himself in London, where he insinuated himself with the ministry, now no longer guided by a Canning, he landed at Lisbon. At a solemn meeting of the estates he repeated his oath, appointed a moderate ministry and kept himself in the background. But it was observed that the criers who daily shouted in front of the palace, “Long live the absolute king!” were no longer driven away or punished as they had been at first and that the constitutional officials and officers had been replaced by adherents of the opposite party; and after the withdrawal of the English troops, whose task was ended after the disbandment of the Spanish corps of observation on the frontiers, he threw off the mask.

On the 13th of March the chamber of deputies was dismissed, and a commission appointed to consider a new election law. On the 3rd of May the governor summoned the three estates of the realm, the “cortes of Lamego,” according to the ancient ordinances. It was now seen whither this true son of his mother was steering. In face of proceedings so manifestly in excess of the existing rights of the regent, the ambassadors of the powers provisionally laid down their offices, and the troops in Oporto rose in defence of the rights of their lawful ruler, Dom Pedro IV. There was no lack of recruits; the number of the constitutional troops increased to seven thousand, but there seems to have been a want of resolute leaders, some of them having taken their departure at Dom Miguel’s first move. The last-named had meanwhile assembled his forces; the mob and the country people armed, and on the 24th of June the constitutional troops suffered a defeat at the hands of the Miguelites under Povoas, in the neighbourhood of Coimbra. They retreated to Oporto, where some of the leaders of the constitutionalists, the marquis of Palmella, and the generals Saldanha, Villaflor, and Stubbs, who had now returned from their flight, in vain endeavoured to rally the disheartened army. Nothing was left to them but to escape from absolutist vengeance by a second flight; the remains of the constitutional army, four thousand strong, crossed into Spanish soil and Miguel’s troops marched into Oporto.

The seizure of the throne could now be completed undisturbed. The new estates which had met at Lisbon, passed, each for itself, the resolution that, according to the fundamental laws of the kingdom, Dom Miguel had been called to the throne. On the 7th of July they paid their homage to the usurper as king. Thus the country was delivered over to the tyranny of a man who for baseness of disposition might compete even with a Ferdinand, and who actually surpassed the latter in coarseness and brutality. Incarcerations, judicial murders, deportations were the order of the day, and reached figures of frightful magnitude. It was a despotism which relied on the mob and the clergy for support; yet the fashion in which Dom Miguel had stolen the crown had been too openly in the very face of the principle of legitimacy to allow of his recognition by the powers; the Spanish ambassador alone remained in Lisbon.

All Portugal submitted; only on the island of Terceira, one of the Azores, the governor Cabrera had upheld the rights of Dom Pedro and his daughter. Repeated attempts of the usurper to subdue the island were frustrated. The leaders of the constitutional party collected there, and there in March, 1830, Dom Pedro established a regency composed of the marquis of Palmella, the lawyer Guerreiro, and General Villaflor, who took possession of the whole group of islands in the name of the lawful government of Portugal.

By injuries to English and French subjects the barbarous reign of violence which prevailed under Dom Miguel soon added the enmity of those two powers to its native opponents. They exacted compensation and the humiliation of the usurper encouraged the party opposed to him which now found further and more energetic support. For in April, 1831, a revolt in Brazil had obliged the emperor Dom Pedro to resign his throne in favour of his son, Dom Pedro II, who was still a minor. In Europe a task lay ready to his hand: that of assisting his daughter Maria da Gloria to her throne, and at the same time freeing Portugal from her tyrant.

Countenanced by England and France, the duke of Braganza, as Dom Pedro now called himself, obtained a small land-force and a fleet, and with these he appeared at Terceira in March, 1832. With seventy-five hundred men he sailed thence to Portugal, landed in the neighbourhood of Oporto, and on the 8th of July obtained possession of this rich commercial city. But he did not succeed in rousing the country to enthusiasm in his cause. In the summer of 1833 his means were exhausted and only a bold decision availed to give a new turn to the undertaking, which, just in itself, had degenerated into a mere aimless adventure. By a loan raised in the city of Oporto he settled the demands of an English free-lance, named Sartorius, who was in his service, and replaced him by Captain Charles Napier. With the latter there embarked a corps of three thousand men under the duke of Terceira, General Villaflor, to try their fortune in the southern province of Algarve. The result exceeded all expectation; the province went over to the cause of Dom Pedro and the queen, and as the ships were on their way back to Oporto, Napier attacked Dom Miguel’s fleet off Cape St. Vincent and won a complete victory. Five ships of war with 280 cannon fell into his hands, and those on board, thirty-two hundred soldiers and sailors, entered Dom Pedro’s service. The news encouraged the duke of Terceira to venture a march on Lisbon, and this bold action also succeeded. Queen Maria da Gloria was proclaimed in the city, and four days later Dom Pedro also entered the town and took over the regency in his daughter’s name.

[Sidenote: [1832-1834 A.D.]]

But the new government was by no means securely established. The regent understood little of Portuguese matters and, as always in these southern revolutions, the victorious party were strangers to the moderation required to restore tranquillity to the country. Dom Miguel had preserved the greater part of his army and its ranks were swelled by the peasants who were completely subjected to him and the priests, and by a numerous and continually multiplying rabble. This army maintained itself in the neighbourhood of Coimbra and on the upper Tagus; frequently it even penetrated to Lisbon and thus the two representatives of priest-ridden absolutism, Dom Miguel and Don Carlos, stood opposed to the two minor queens, whom chance had made the representatives of the principle of liberalism.

It was in Portugal that matters first came to an issue. To England, Portugal was the most important country as Spain was to France, and for both powers a real neutrality was an impossibility. A complete victory for Dom Miguel, signified to England--apart from the indignation which must be excited by that monster’s system of rule--the complete loss of her influence in Portugal, and at the same time the destruction of the constitutional principle which naturally had the sympathies of the English nation and the Whigs who were then in power, and which was identified with the government of those classes of society whom a commercial people like the English must necessarily consider. And England had already long since broken through her neutrality.

In regard to the government of France, the position was similar: Louis Philippe was the natural ally of Queen Isabella, whose claims to the throne rested, like his own, on a violation of the principle of legitimacy. But the victory of the Portuguese pretender would of necessity lead to that of the Spanish claimant whose cause had equal chances in its favour, and moreover there could not be a better opportunity of opposing a liberal solidarity on the part of the western powers to the legitimatist solidarity of the eastern, and thus confirm the stability of the new throne of France. This community of interests brought about the conclusion of a quadruple alliance between Portugal and Spain, England and France (12th of April, 1834), by which the regents of Portugal and Spain agreed to expel the two pretenders, and for this object a Spanish corps was to co-operate with the Portuguese troops; the undertaking was to be supported by England with her warships and by France, if necessary, with troops.

[Sidenote: [1834-1835 A.D.]]

The result was soon apparent. On the 12th of May Dom Miguel’s army was defeated by the united Spanish and Portuguese army at Asseiceira and on the 26th the two allies, Dom Miguel and Don Carlos, surrounded by a superior force, capitulated at Evora in the province of Alemtejo. The former took a money payment, which he might squander anywhere but in Spain and Portugal, promised to respect his niece’s rights and retired from the scenes, taking ship for Genoa. Don Carlos went to England.

Affairs quieted down in Portugal. Dom Pedro summoned the cortes and restored the Constitution of 1826; monastic and knightly orders and various abuses were abolished; the Jesuits had to leave the country; but the establishment of the new order of things was completed with moderation and without revenge, and above all the law was treated with respect. On the 18th of September in that year the estates declared the queen, though only fifteen, to be of age, since the state of the regent’s health did not permit of his attending to business. On the 24th Dom Pedro died at the age of thirty-seven.[b]

MARIA II (1834-1853 A.D.)

Donna Maria was sixteen years old at her father’s death. The cortes believed nevertheless that it ought to declare the majority of the queen, which she would not have attained according to the charter until her eighteenth year. Donna Maria hastened to put all her confidence in the duke of Palmella. Senhor de Palmella and his friends, while they brought great support to the government, did not make up for the strength of which it had been deprived by Dom Pedro’s death, and did not disarm any adversary. The position of the entire Portuguese ministry with regard to England was truly intolerable; placed between an imperious national sentiment and unconquerable necessities it was at all times accused by the opposition of sacrificing the country’s interests to those of an insatiable ally. The question of customs duties and the renewal of the treaties furnished the enemies of the ministry with national weapons, for nothing was so unpopular in Portugal as the lowering of the tariff and free trade.

In spite of the enormous expenditure due to civil war and the general ruin, the raising of loans contracted in London easily covered at first the deficit in the treasury. The abundance of money was such that they even foolishly employed specie to retire a paper currency in circulation since the time of João V. This false prosperity had no other result than to close all eyes to the dangers of the future. At the beginning of 1835 the minister of finance was compelled to admit an enormous deficit. The government was unable to borrow any longer nor even increase their taxes. It became necessary to have recourse to expedients and to set out on the deplorable road of anticipations.

Officials’ salaries and officers’ pay were no longer regularly paid, and the number of malcontents grew in proportion to the impossibility of satisfying them. The army and the national guard of Lisbon were entirely in the clutches of the secret societies. The internal dissensions among the ministers led several of them to associate themselves with clubs and to seek in the anarchist party a passing point of support against their colleagues; for, while all attacks were directed against Palmella, and especially Carvalho, there were in the space of one year eight changes of cabinet. The motives of these changes were always of a personal nature, and were to be found in the intrigues of the clubs which often crossed and clashed with those of other clubs.

[Sidenote: [1835-1837 A.D.]]

Upon this state of affairs there broke the revolt of La Granja, which served as a signal for a similar movement in Portugal. For more than a year alarming symptoms had been showing themselves. The chamber of deputies had refused the chief command of the army to the queen’s first husband, Prince Augustus of Leuchtenberg. After four months of marriage he succumbed to a short illness.[c] In less than a year the queen remarried. Her second husband was Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, nephew of the Belgian king. He obtained the chief command of the army, which made matters more difficult as he was unpopular.[a]

Then the queen ordered the dissolution of the cortes at the moment when all the Spanish juntas were in insurrection. The government was playing with the frivolity and light-mindedness of the people when, on the 9th of September, 1836, the newly elected deputies from Oporto arrived in Lisbon. They all belonged to the radical party. A band of musicians advanced to meet them, the city was illuminated, and enthusiastic cheers filled the streets and byways. By the end of the evening the ministers became alarmed at the demonstration and sent out a battalion to restore order. The soldiers fraternised with the people and all cried, “Down with the ministers; long live the Constitution of 1822.” This excited mob, really more joyous than hostile, made its way to the palace and sent the surprised queen a deputation ordering her to dismiss the ministers and adhere to the constitution.

The queen refused to obey, and rejected the revolutionists’ commands. A little later she resigned herself to the necessity, and she burst into tears. The count of Lumiares, Bernardo de Sá da Bandeira, and Passos were named ministers, and the queen promised to convoke the cortes according to the forms of the Constitution of 1822, in order that they might recast the fundamental law of the kingdom.

Passos planned out a pantheon, issued a thousand regulations relating to libraries and museums, and abolished bull-fights through motives of philanthropy. Bernardo de Sá destroyed all that he could, his principle being that things would arrange themselves afterward as well as they could and what was once overthrown would never be re-established.

November 3rd a few persons of the court tried to work a counter-revolution. The queen secretly betook herself to the castle of Belem, from which place she called the army and the people of the court around her and abjured the forced oath she had taken on the 10th of September. This scheme, bad and unpracticable in itself, presented one difficulty among many others which had not been seen by the prime movers of the plot. Belem is separated from Lisbon by a little river, and the constitutionalists in seizing the bridge of Alcantara cut off all communication between the castle and the partisans of the charter. The hostile attitude of his Britannic majesty’s warships intimidated no one. The constitutionalists strengthened their love of the constitution with their hatred for England, and this time the people of Lisbon seemed led by a common sentiment. At the end of three days the queen renounced her dangerous project and returned to the city amid bonfires and the enthusiastic acclamations of the people.

This unlucky and abortive affair proved three things: the solidity of Donna Maria’s throne, which was never for one moment shaken by this foolish experiment; the aversion of the people for the English yoke; and the hatred of the radicals towards a few political men. Freire was assassinated at the bridge of Alcantara. On the 18th of January, 1837, after four months and a half of dictatorial power, exercised according to the statutes of the constitution by Bernardo de Sá and Passos, the constituent cortes met at Lisbon. According to the law of 1822 it formed a single chamber and was elected by almost universal suffrage. The 6th of May the cortes submitted the basis of the constitution and sixty-four votes against sixteen declared for absolute veto, the two chambers and the leading principles of all fundamental laws.

[Sidenote: [1837-1838 A.D.]]

This was the opportunity for its enemies, and the baron de Leiria, who commanded in the north, raised the banner of insurrection on the 12th of July. Several garrisons, more important for the names of the towns than for the number of the soldiers, rose up to cries of “Long live the charter!” Marshal Saldanha proceeded to Castello Branco. The duke of Terceira soon joined him, and for a month the two insurgent marshals overran the country without opposition. The Lisbon government confided extraordinary powers to the viscount de Sá and the baron de Bomfim.

These two officers, with the constitutional forces, attacked the marshal’s troops at Rio Mayor on the 28th of August, and, although on both sides they had had more than six weeks in which to make preparations, neither of the armies counted eight hundred men. But the soldiers were more prudent than their leaders. After a slight infantry skirmish in which the Portuguese nobility had sensible losses to deplore, the two marshals gave the order to charge to their little squadron and the viscount de Sá advanced at the head of his troops. The cavalry on both sides stopped at fifty paces, replaced their sabres in the scabbards, and having fraternised returned faithfully to the flags of their respective commanders. The latter saw themselves compelled to sign an armistice, and the marshals retired to the north to rejoin baron de Leiria who still held out in the suburbs of Valencia.

Forces were equal and victory depended on the side that would get hold of the corps which, having served in the army of Queen Christina, was returning to Portugal under the orders of the viscount das Antas. This general decided in favour of the constitutionals, and, after a bloody fight at Ruivaes on the 20th of September, the remains of the chartist army was obliged to take refuge in Galicia.

But the evil which no constitution could remedy was growing day by day. On the 14th of October bankruptcy was declared--the necessity of paying the victors had drained the last drop of the state’s finances. The body of workmen at the arsenal, who for two weeks had been giving unequivocal signs of discontent, openly rebelled on the 13th of March, 1838. Baron Bomfim surrounded the arsenal buildings by a line of troops and the rebels fired first upon the soldiers. This was truly a critical moment for Portugal. The cortes were opposed to any vigorous measures and clung to the side of the insurrection. But the fate of the ministers was nevertheless bound to the maintenance of order, and Bernardo took his stand boldly. He marched with Baron Bomfim against the rebels, who were completely defeated after a furious and bloody combat. After this time the arsenal party, as it was called, attempted fresh insurrections and more than once threatened the peace of the kingdom, but the events of the 13th of March had irrevocably fixed the government’s position. Besides, when on the 4th of April the queen took an oath to the new constitution and proclaimed a general amnesty for the past, the chartists and the moderate portion of the constitutionalists found themselves naturally united against the more radical faction. Afterwards they were almost completely confused under the name of the “friends of order.”[b] On the 16th of September, 1837, Queen Maria had given birth to a son. This greatly improved the queen’s position, but the king-consort continued very unpopular, and the condition of affairs encouraged Dom Miguel to seek aid in London. But he sought in vain and returned to Rome. Discontent was still rife in Portugal, cabinets played see-saw, and in August, 1840, the 6th regiment of the line mutinied and shot its colonel.

Meanwhile England was pressing its claims for £375,475 [$1,807,475] for commissariats in 1826 and for half-pay for the British officers who had served under Wellington and Beresford. The claim provoked only indignation in Portugal. In 1841 Spain came in for hostility.[a]

[Sidenote: [1835-1842 A.D.]]

In 1835 the navigation of the Douro had caused considerable excitement between Spain and Portugal, which nearly led to a war between the two countries. There appeared in the _Gazette de Madrid_ a violent article against Portugal, also an insulting one against Donna Maria II. Saldanha gave the Spanish government forty-eight hours to make reparation, notifying it that in the event of refusal a Portuguese fleet should fire the towns from Cadiz to Barcelona. Apology was made. Portugal had difficulties also with Denmark, when Saldanha requested the Portuguese minister to leave, if, after three days, satisfaction was not given. The Danish minister was recalled, but Saldanha obtained his wishes.

England complained that Portugal was too complaisant to France and the United States, and forgot her old ally, and declared she felt disposed to occupy the Portuguese Indian possessions on account of claims. Saldanha went to London with instructions to do as he pleased. Lord Palmerston told him to tell his government that England acceded to his desire to modify the convention, for his sake, and not for that of the Portuguese government.

Dom Miguel’s party in Portugal, as well as the _absolutos_ on the continent, considered he had now another chance of returning to his country. He left Rome for England, remaining some time, but he could make no move, and returned again to Italy. In December, 1841, the municipal elections commenced in Lisbon. There were now two great contending parties, the _moderados_, who supported the ministry, and the constitutionals, that of order; the pure Septembrists[184] were considered as revolutionists or even republicans, and there were most probably many Miguelites amongst them.[d]

CABRAL AND THE CHARTISTS IN POWER (1842 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1842-1847 A.D.]]

In January, 1842, Portugal once more found herself face to face with the sad prospect of revolution, and the leader no less a person than the minister of justice, Costa Cabral, formerly one of the most ardent of Septembrists, now entirely converted to Dom Pedro’s charter. Secretly seconded by the king and by Dietz and Drummond, who composed the occult government at Lisbon, he went to Oporto and thence to Coimbra, proclaiming the abolition of the established constitution.

The queen, who was not in the secret of the plot, in vain confided its repression to Palmella, Das Antas, and Bomfim. The duke of Terceira pronounced in favour of Costa Cabral; Palmella took no action and the revolution was brought to a head before anyone had seriously thought of suppressing it. Costa Cabral completed his triumph with the promise that the cortes would be immediately convoked for the revision of the charter, and from that time it was he who reigned under the name of the duke of Terceira, president of the council. It goes without saying that Donna Maria was content to subscribe to everything she formerly had opposed. Most docile, subject to the wishes of her husband and her confessor, she had, moreover, never liked the constitution, and had herself twice attempted to destroy it in 1837.

Sustained by the high protection of the court, by the servility of the two chambers, by the friendship of his brother the governor of Lisbon, and finally by the friendly neutrality of the Miguelites, for whom the fall of the constitution would be nothing less than a triumph, Costa Cabral had nothing to restrain him. And he was not the man to hesitate before despotism. It was not sufficient that the tribune was almost silenced; he soon affirmed his power by the promulgation of three decrees which abolished almost the last of Portugal’s liberties. The first concerned the judges, whose independence he destroyed; the second delivered the officers over to the absolutism of the minister; the third submitted all education to a censor and struck a death-blow at the universities. Is there need to add that the press was not less abused, and no longer had freedom but to praise?

It was not long before he went a little further. For a long time one of the greatest plagues of the Portuguese administration was that they could not exist without loans. They borrowed to meet even the ordinary expenses, they borrowed to pay interest on the debt; they borrowed for redemptions--all the while accumulating a more onerous burden. Costa Cabral finally had his eyes opened to this state of affairs, pointed it out to the queen, and while he himself was responsible for twenty-three loans in three years, he dared undertake to get rid of them, understanding well that irreparable ruin would be the result of the continuation of such a policy. But whether the taxation he established to reopen the true sources of prosperity to the finances of his country was really too heavy, or the strangeness of the thing made it seem so, Costa Cabral did not have the time to carry out and improve this great reform. He had presumed too much on his own strength and the intelligence of the people; no government was solid enough in Portugal to stand such a test.

THE SEPTEMBRISTS OVERTHROW COSTA CABRAL

[Sidenote: [1847-1850 A.D.]]

But from the day that Costa Cabral himself set the example of insurrection, by rousing Oporto and Coimbra in the name of the charter, all his former friends became allied to punish him as soon as possible for his apostasy. Their leaders were Das Antas, Passos, Sá da Bandeira, Loulé, and especially Bomfim, who represented the mixed party.

When he had furnished them an opportunity by the introduction of a new tax which could not fail to arouse the anger of the peasants, they induced the whole province of Minho to revolt; and the majority of the other towns showing similar inclinations, Costa Cabral found it impossible to hold up his head to the storm.[185] Cabral fled to Spain with his brother the governor, under pretext of a year’s leave of absence which the queen herself had granted him. During this time those whom he had formerly exiled and despoiled succeeded to his high power.

But it was not for long. Costa Cabral had been in power at least four years. Scarcely had his adversaries entered into possession of the authority, when they had to contend with a new counter-revolution hatched in the queen’s palace and soon supported by England, France, and Spain.

Donna Maria’s victory was also Costa Cabral’s, the latter in truth was only awaiting the signal to reappear in Portugal, and (astonishing thing, and one that shows well how superficial these agitations are!) he was cordially received there. It seemed as if everybody was his friend. Justice must be rendered Cabral in that, far from being intoxicated with a victory as complete as it was unexpected, he appeared only desirous of wiping it out--perhaps because he feared to raise again all the resentment under which he had once succumbed, perhaps because he preferred to hold back, or perhaps because, scorned plebeian that he was, he feared to offend the aristocratic pride of the great families by the immediate occupation of the highest office. He therefore refused the ministry and, content with an anonymous supremacy, transferred the honour to Pombal’s grandson, the old marshal the duke of Saldanha, January, 1848.

This policy of Costa Cabral’s showed itself still better at the moment when Marshal Saldanha refused to retain the post which was a source of trouble to him. Costa Cabral begged the duke of Terceira and Duarte-Leitao to accept the presidency of the council, and it was only upon their positive refusal that he decided to reassume it himself. If nobody wanted it, how could he be blamed for taking it? Still, he tried to disarm the anger that might be aroused at his accession by accepting a feudal title which undoubtedly he cared little about. But was it not better to defer solemnly to the unconquerable prejudices of the Portuguese aristocracy by concealing a plebeian name under the pompous title of the count of Thomar? However that might be, the new president of the council used his power energetically for the reformation of abuses, to complete the reconciliation of Portugal and Rome, to improve the state of the finances, to stimulate agriculture and commerce, and to restore the navy. Never, whatever might be said of it afterward, had Portugal been so prosperous since the glorious era when Pombal had undertaken to revive the glories of olden times. If this administration, rigorous but able, could have maintained itself for only ten years, Portugal would have lifted itself out of the abyss into which it was threatening to disappear.

But unfortunately this was not to be. All his old adversaries, disconcerted for a moment by the suddenness of his return, returned on their side to their intrigues and their alliances. The Miguelites irritated at his reforms, the great nobles offended at his supremacy, the Septembrists indignant at what they called his apostasy, the journalists embittered at the severities of his new law against the press (1850)--all these combined to overthrow him again. There remained to find a leader, and that did not take long. The marshal Saldanha was there, discontented and anxious to avenge himself at any cost.

Having voluntarily left the ministry, the duke of Saldanha proclaimed himself at first the friend and devoted adherent of the count of Thomar. He even went so far as to say one day that in politics he and the count were one and the same person. But constancy and fidelity were not distinguishing qualities of the noble duke, and this effervescence of friendship did not prevent his regretting the authority he had just given up of his own accord. As his claims were admitted neither by the count of Thomar nor his colleagues, he was thrown roughly into the ranks of the opposition and his first declaration of hostilities was a virulent attack upon the minister of war. Neither the chamber, the ministers, nor the queen paid much attention to this, and the latter even dared to reply that she did not allow her servants to give her advice, and especially written advice, unless she asked it. This was a cruel allusion to the post of first major-domo of the palace with which the duke was invested. Thereupon Saldanha’s anger put him at the disposition of all those who were willing to second his revenge.

[Sidenote: [1850-1855 A.D.]]

A not less seductive hope for Costa Cabral’s enemies was England’s declared assistance. Lord Palmerston was at that time at the head of foreign affairs, and no minister was ever more exclusively preoccupied with the interests of England. At the first news of the reforms which the Portuguese government had accomplished, or was meditating, he did not lose an instant in encouraging its enemies, in overwhelming it with threatening notes, in recommending a close friendship with the Septembrists to the representatives of Great Britain, and even in sending a fleet with provisions and money. If there were to be a Portuguese renaissance, what would in truth become of England’s commercial supremacy over that country, and through that country over the whole peninsula?

Accusations of embezzlement, intrigue, and corruption were renewed against Thomar which served to disconcert his friends. April 8th, 1851, the duke of Saldanha succeeded in raising two battalions. It was from Oporto that the signal for the revolt came. It extended from there to Coimbra and then to Lisbon, when it found a leader even in the prime minister’s brother, Sylva Cabral. Some personal resentment had ranged this unhappy personage with the bitterest adversaries and calumniators of the count of Thomar. Forced finally to hand in his resignation, he was exiled. The count of Thomar took his departure, with regret at leaving his reforms uncompleted, and without the wealth, of whose accumulation his enemies so persistently accused him. As for the queen, she tried vainly to soften the rough blow which royalty itself had received. Neither the conquerors of the count of Thomar, nor Lord Palmerston, nor Sir Henry Seymour, powerfully supported by an English fleet, would consent to spare her any of the bitterness of her defeat. They signified their wish that she should solemnly retract all the acts of the preceding ministry, that she should remove the king from the command of the army, restore Marshal Saldanha to his post of major-domo, and even accept him as prime minister in place of the marshal the duke of Terceira, whom she had been forced to substitute for the count of Thomar. What could she do against this triumphant power? Donna Maria agreed to everything, and a few days later Saldanha entered Lisbon amid flowers and cries of enthusiasm, which the fickle populace lavished upon every victory.[e] In 1852 the charter was revised to suit all parties; direct voting, one of the chief claims of the radicals, was allowed, and the era of civil war came to an end.[f]

When, under Saldanha’s more vigorous rule, peace was beginning to settle over the land, the queen died on November 15th, 1853, at the age of thirty-five. Her husband Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg became regent for his minor son, who mounted the throne of Portugal on September 17th, 1855, as Dom Pedro V.[186]

PEDRO V (1855-1861 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1855-1862 A.D.]]

There was still that dream of uniting Spain to Portugal, but when the proposition was made to Pedro V, he replied: “They think to flatter my ambition and believe that I shall favour them; they are mistaken. Besides the reasons of propriety, policy, and honour which should restrain me, there are considerations which I must not forget--yes, I--if others do forget them. They do not reflect that if the house of Braganza mounts the throne of the peninsula, Portugal would be nothing but a Spanish province, and that our nationality would be absorbed. But I, who am the first of the Portuguese, the first citizen of a country which occupies an honourable place in the history of humanity--I should be a faithless vicar, if I favoured such a project. These people are even our great enemies, for they prevent many useful enactments which might be for the common good of the two peoples--for example, the development of international communication, progress in the material interests of the countries, and the unity of weights, measures, money, and customs regulations.”[g]

The only political event of any importance during the reign of Dom Pedro V, who in 1857 married the princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern, was the affair of the _Charles et Georges_. 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 III, glad to have a chance of posing before 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. The whole country, especially the city of Lisbon, was ravaged by cholera and yellow fever during this reign, itself evidence of the extreme neglect of all sanitary precautions; and on November 11th, 1861, the king, who refused to quit the pestilence-stricken capital, died of cholera, and was speedily followed to the grave by two of his brothers, Dom Ferdinand and Dom João.[f]

THE REIGN OF LUIZ (1861-1889 A.D.)

The development of affairs in Portugal now took a decidedly liberal course. The Portuguese government had recognised the new Italian monarchy already in June, 1861, and the following year King Luiz had married Princess Maria Pia, the daughter of King Victor Emmanuel. On December 22nd, 1861, Dom Luiz took the oath to the constitution and, since the people were alarmed at the frequent number of deaths in the royal family, the government laid before the cortes a law controlling the regency and another which declared princesses also to be eligible for the throne and thus put still further off the danger that a descendant of Dom Miguel might succeed to the throne of Portugal.

[Sidenote: [1862-1868 A.D.]]

Not a single Portuguese bishop appeared at the celebrated council at Rome in 1862 and, in a document dated July 3rd, the pope had occasion to complain that in the “lamentable state of the Catholic church in Portugal” the bishops were too lukewarm and tolerant; he reminded them that it was their duty to watch over the sheep intrusted to their care so that--in the language of the curial--“they should not be devoured by the ravenous beasts which make the surface of the earth unsafe to live upon.” When some of the clergy took advantage of this to preach against the government, they were reminded by a proclamation of the minister of justice (August 2nd) that there were prisons in Portugal for such cases. The ministers were of liberal colour; in April, 1863, an important law was passed abolishing the right of primogeniture, an old evil of their country; in May, 1864, a decision of the second chamber demanded that the peers’ title should no longer be hereditary.[b]

In spite of popular opposition the government entered resolutely on reform by abolishing capital punishment for any crime, civil or political. Following the example set by many European countries, they also adopted the metric system, organising consolidated funds and, what was a very important reform, abolishing the royal gifts of lands to support a title. In 1864, a treaty of delimitation which had been in progress for several years was definitely drawn up with Spain. New roads were marked out and furrowed the kingdom in every direction, making Lisbon the centre for all roads having direct communication with the province. Aqueducts were constructed; towns made sanitary; hospitals, almshouses, model dwellings rose in the large industrial centres. Newly made canals allowed these towns to transport their goods seawards without unnecessary costly relading. The smallest boroughs were provided with schools, etc. But all these works, useful, it is true, and almost necessary, made a large hole in the state coffers. Fontes Pereira de Mello tried to overcome this by getting votes for the modification and increase of old taxes of every kind, even of the yearly land tax, also the amending of indirect taxation. These reforms were the cause of new troubles in Oporto, but they were suppressed without recourse to arms. Lisbon and several other towns followed Oporto’s example, and the government, fearing lest troubles there should insensibly assume serious proportions and lead to civil war, yielded to the people’s will and withdrew the new taxes (1867).

In 1868, a fresh insurrection broke out in Spain and was necessarily felt in Portugal. It was an immediate question of conferring the Spanish crown so as to fuse the two peoples, a union which would have taken the title of the Iberian Union. But the Portuguese, remembering what their ancestors had suffered under the Spanish yoke, feared lest this union should lead to the surrender of Portugal to Spain, and profited by the anniversary of the coming to the throne of João IV (of the illustrious house of Braganza) in 1640, to make strong resistance against Spain. In view of this excitement, the Spaniards abandoned their first idea, not being willing to expose themselves any more to the vindictiveness of a people not able to forget oppression dating nearly four centuries back.

One of the wisest and most humane reforms, and one which adds most to the glory of Luiz I, was the entire abolition of slavery in every colony. But, by a curious and sad coincidence, as if in answer to the royal benefit, about five hundred Portuguese were pitilessly massacred by natives on the Zambesi. On this news being announced, an army corps embarked immediately to avenge the honour of the flag.[h]

[Sidenote: [1864-1899 A.D.]]

The history of Portugal for the years 1863-1866, as far as its connection with the rest of Europe is concerned, presents almost empty pages--which, however, was not precisely a misfortune to the country. We read in November, 1864, of differences between the government and the pope which ended in the recall from Rome of the Portuguese ambassador, who did not return thither until two years later; of the opening and closing of the sessions of the cortes, of elections, of satisfactory finances, of the modification and change of ministries. It was already something remarkable that the great state question was raised at the birth of a prince in August, 1865, that the papal nuncio would not permit King Victor Emmanuel, the father of the young mother, who was in a sense under a ban, to officiate as godfather, and that the royal child was not admitted to the privilege of baptism until after Napoleon III had added to his many rôles that of being sponsor to the Portuguese prince.[b]

In 1866 Dom Miguel died, after having stood at the head of the absolutists calling themselves the Party of the Faith, and sojourning at various European courts. He had been lampooned by the liberal press, but was given a magnificent funeral.

The old and stormy Saldanha threatened a _pronunciamento_ in 1870, and succeeded in ousting from court the king’s favourite, the duke of Loulé. He was appeased by supplanting Loulé as minister, but after four months was gracefully disposed of on the pretext of the embassy to England, where he died in 1876. The ministry of Pereira de Mello lasted for three years, 1883-1886, in which year there was danger of collision with the French Republic in view of the marriage of Luiz’s heir to the daughter of the comte de Paris. The ceding of a portion of the Lower Congo territory to Belgium in 1885, the definition of German and Portuguese spheres of influence in Africa, the cession of the island of Macao by China, the building of a railroad in Angola marked colonial affairs. In 1889 there was alarm over the encroachments of England on Portuguese influence in Africa, and Major Serpa Pinto invaded territory on the Shiré river claimed by England. The British government demanded reparation and sent to Portugal a fleet which, January 11th, 1890, induced Portugal to withdraw from the Shiré region under protest.

CARLOS I BECOMES KING (1889 A.D.)

This surrender provoked outbreaks at Lisbon and Oporto; the ministry of José de Castro resigned, and the republicans, stimulated by the Brazilian success in establishing a republic the year before, turned the anti-British demonstration into a republican agitation. King Carlos had succeeded his father when King Luiz died of typhoid fever, October 19th, 1889. The new king assumed to side with the popular feeling and refused the order of the Garter which Queen Victoria had just offered him. The republican movement overshot itself, and, after various arrests were made, the elections were strongly for the government. August 20th, an agreement with England had been reached, after a vain appeal to international arbitration. The terms were again distasteful to the public and the cortes refused to accept them. Passages at arms took place between the Portuguese and the British in Nika (Manica), which by the terms of the August agreement were Portuguese. But the terms had been declined and the Portuguese were defeated. A military revolt was suppressed in January, 1891, and the republican press suppressed. The terms of the August agreement were now accepted and a treaty with Great Britain was signed May 28th, 1891.

Financial affairs had now reached a crisis after wrecking so many cabinets. In May, 1892, the government finally declared itself bankrupt. Still relief did not come and Oliveira Martins, after failing as minister to establish a sound financial condition, gave way to Ferreira, who yielded to Hintze-Ribeiro, who lasted from 1894 to 1897, and returned in 1899.

In 1895 a reform of the constitution of the cortes was achieved, the lower chamber was reduced from 170 to 145, the upper house was to be constituted of ninety members chosen by the king, the royal princes, and twelve bishops; the right of suffrage was based on the ability to read and write and the minimum payment of 500 reis (50 cents) in taxes. Domestic servants, government employees, and soldiers are, however, forbidden to vote. This same year the king visited England, accepted the order of the Garter, and began the cultivation of that British friendship which its liberal construction of the limits of neutrality during the South African War served to strengthen--at least in England, though violently attacked in Portugal. In 1900 the Delagoa Bay Railroad dispute with England was decided in Portugal’s favour by Switzerland as arbitrator.[a]

PORTUGUESE LITERATURE

[Sidenote: [1812-1900 A.D.]]

The country of Camoens and João de Barros has never lost its love for letters, and the Portuguese people have always possessed a poetic strain. If in the eighteenth century poetry reached the level of too Parnassian trifles, it redeemed itself after the war under the impulse of Francisco Manoel do Nascimento, and with still finer taste under the influence of Almo da Garot, and of Castilho, followed by a good number of lyric and dramatic poets and romancers. J. B. Gomes (died 1812), by his sole tragedy _The New Iñes de Castro_, has taken a place among the most remarkable of dramatists. Other authors have written for the theatre; for example, Vasconcellos, Reis Quita, Biester, Pimentet, and perhaps the first of them all is Almeida Garrett (died 1854).

Bulhão Pato has made a name among the poets as well as T. A. Gonzaga, João de Lemos, Antonio Pereira da Cunha, and Ribeiro, the minister. Like King Diniz of old and Philip of Lancaster, King Pedro IV was a poet. He has written verse destined to be set to music and he has given the country the “Constitution Hymn.” Dominic Buontempo founded the Philharmonic Academy at Lisbon, and the composer Marcos Portugal is known throughout all Europe.

Alexandre Herculano (died 1878), erudite and _littérateur_, rivalled the work of the Benedictines in his _Portugalica Monumenta Historica_; but he did not please the clergy, for he wrote of the Inquisition in Portugal and the Concordat of February 21st, 1857. In the _Harp of the Believer_ he has told in verse of the eternal strife between doubt and faith.

Science, letters, and art have had illustrious representatives in José Ribeira, Antonio de Almeida (died 1839), Gaetan de Amaral, Antonio de Carmo, Velho de Barbosa, Costa de Macedo who has aroused much discussion by his opinions, Francisco Alexandre Lobo, de Carvalho, Manoel Coelho da Rocha. In geography, the viscount of Santarem (died 1856), Brito Capello, Robert Irens, Serpa Pinto, and Otto Schutt, count among African explorers.[g]

[Sidenote: [1897 A.D.]]

The present king of Portugal, Carlos I, born in 1863, has shown a decided determination to seek the peace his country so much needs. He has shown also a real interest in science and letters and since the five hundredth anniversary of Prince Henry the Navigator celebrated in March, 1894, he has shown a lively concern for deep-sea soundings and exploration. He has made personal studies and both published their results and shown them at an oceanographic exhibition which he opened in 1897. The world is too well mapped to offer such prizes as once lay hidden in the Sea of Darkness, but there is a peculiar fitness in the present monarch’s interest in that ocean across which his great predecessor showed the path that led Portugal to greatness, and through Portugal turned the whole world to exploration.[a]

FOOTNOTES

[184] [Partisans of the liberal constitution of 1838.]

[185] [This insurrection was called the War of Maria da Fonte or “Patuleia” and was ended through foreign influence, by the Convention of Granada, June 29th, 1847.]

[186] [“Dom Pedro V, although only sixteen, showed as soon as he ascended the throne a subtlety of spirit, a greatness of soul, and so precocious an intelligence that his people augured the most happy destiny for the country, and in its joy gave him the surname of ‘El Esperanzo,’ their hopes in him being so great. But a short time after (1861) the young prince in his turn also died, smitten in the flower of his age, in the midst of unfinished works.”--SILVERCRUYS.[h]]