330 THE PORTUGUESE STRUGGLE. 



Impressed with this conviction, all the energies of the Miguelite party 

 will be brought into play ; and in consequence, reduced as the question 

 now is to a purely military one : we very much fear that Don Pedro's 

 chances of success are problematical in the extreme. 



The view we have taken of the Portuguese question will by many be 

 considered as gloomy. Our inference is deduced from the history of 

 the past. First in the career of discovery and improvement, at a period 

 when the other nations of Europe slumbered in a state of comparative 

 ignorance and inactivity, Portugal had reached her culminatory point 

 ere her competitors had well started in the race. She has run the 

 course that has marked the destinies of prouder empires than hers. De- 

 generacy has succeeded to glory, insignificence to greatness. When once 

 a nation has fairly commenced its descent in the scale of humanity, a re- 

 generative movement is next to impossible j at least we in vain search 

 the varied page of history for such an example, and we fear it is not 

 among the descendants of Veriatus that the stern condition of humanity 

 will find an exception ; on the contrary, they will confirm the accumu- 

 lated experience of ages, and the opinion which the celebrated American 

 Senator, John Randolph, expressed on the new states of South America, 

 may with equal justice be applied to their European brethren. " One 

 way as well think of building seventy-fours out of oak saplings as to make 

 freemen of Portuguese ! " Individually, we are the first to admit, that 

 they possess qualities that command our admiration and respect ; but, 

 politically speaking, as a nation they are degenerate and contemptible. 

 Don Pedro may raise not legions, but armies of Poles ; but if he succeed 

 not in gaining over the sense of the country, the failure of his enterprise 

 is certain. But even should the event prove otherwise should the 

 blue and white banner of the youthful Queen Maria da Gloria float in 

 triumph on the walls of the capital, those who augur that the course of 

 human freedom will be advanced one iota by the efforts of the Portu- 

 guese, will be cruelly disappointed. They will find that they have 

 raised up an aerial structure of hope upon a foundation of sand. Let us 

 spare our sympathies for such as are worthy of them. Let us unite our 

 energies, our assistance for those who are ripe for freedom; who can 

 appreciate its blessings ; who would rather embrace it under difficulties 

 and beset with peril, than revel in plenty, if it be that of a degraded 

 slave, priest-ridden, and spurned by his task masters. It is for the 

 really free the free in heart and mind that we should put out our 

 strength : the Portuguese, and such as they, we must leave to their own 

 hopeless degeneracy and degradation. 



